On July 1, Louisiana state representative Melinda White of Bogalusa switched her registration from Democratic to independent. Thanks to Ballotpedia for this news.
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On July 16, the Maine Libertarian Party filed this letter brief with the U.S. District Court that is hearing the party’s lawsuit over how a party gains and keeps qualified status, and also how a member of a small qualified party may get on the primary ballot.
The party’s letter was in response to a letter sent to the court last month by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State’s letter said that the 2021 legislature had eased the means for a party to remain ballot-qualified, and therefore the Libertarian case is now less persuasive, because the law is better now. But the legislature did nothing to make it easier for a party to become ballot-qualified, nor did it ease the difficulty of a member of a small qualified party to get on the primary ballot for that party.
Dan Rosenthal, one of the three selectmen of Newtown, Connecticut, is up for re-election in November 2021. Although he was first elected as a Democrat in 2019, this year he will instead run for re-election as the nominee of the SAM Party. See this story.
Newtown has a population of 27,560 and is somewhat famous for being the site of the 2012 Sandy Hook School shooting, which killed 26 people. It is in Fairfield County, which is in the southwest corner of the state.
The law for town officers provides that no party may run for more than two seats, even though all seats are up every two years.
For years, Kansas had been the only state with partisan registration, in which the state’s election website had no data on the number of registered voters in each party. Fortunately, the Secretary of State has now added monthly voter registration data by party to his website. Here is a link that shows a monthly total for each month of 2021. Thanks to Eric Lund for this news.
This article says Ross “Rocky” Anderson, former mayor of Salt Lake City, intends to revive the Justice Party, which he helped create in 2011 but when has been dormant for many years.