The Virginia Republican Party is using a convention this year to choose nominees for the three statewide offices, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General. The convention was Saturday, May 8. The party is using ranked choice voting and is counting all the ballots by hand. The results aren’t available yet, but they probably will be on Monday, May 10. See this story.
Ohio is currently suing the U.S. Census Bureau, demanding that population data needed for redistricting be furnished earlier than September 2021. The Sixth Circuit will hear Ohio’s appeal on Wednesday, May 12. The judges will be Amul Thapar (a Trump appointee), Martha Daughtrey (a Clinton appointee), and David McKeague (a Bush Sr. appointee). State of Ohio v Raimondo,, 21-3294.
The Ninth Circuit website has posted the audio for the May 6 oral argument in Montana Green Party v Jacobsen, 20-35340. Listen via this link. It lasts 36 minutes. The case was filed in 2018 against the unequal distribution requirement for petitions to recognize a new party. The U.S. District Court had upheld it, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that unequal distribution requirements for statewide petitions violate “one person, one vote.”
The Montana party petition requires a certain number of signatures in each of 33 state house districts, but the number varies, even though the districts are approximately equal in population. Some districts require as few as 55 signatures; others as many as 150. No other state has such a peculiar distribution requirement.
The Nevada bill to establish a presidential primary has been amended, to provide that the Nevada presidential primary would be the earliest primary in the nation. See this story.
Early on the morning of May 7, the Texas House passed a bill that makes it a felony for anyone to give anyone else an application for an absentee ballot, if the recipient had not first requested it. See this story. The bill is not yet through the legislature because the Senate version differs.
