The Eighth Circuit has decided to hold an oral argument in Libertarian Party of Minnesota v Choi, 20-2244. The issues include the law that requires all non-presidential independent petitions to be completed in two weeks, and the law that says the signer of the petition does not expect to vote in any upcoming primary on the same office for which the petition concerns. That law cannot be enforced because, of course, Minnesota and all states has a secret ballot.
Wisconsin is holding a special election on April 6 to fill the vacancy in the State Senate, 13th district. The four candidates on the ballot are Republican John Jagler, Democrat Melissa Winker, American Solidarity Party nominee Ben Schmitz, and an independent, Spencer Zimmerman.
All four candidates were invited into a debate, which was held March 31. The Republican nominee did not attend. Here is a news story about the debate. The independent candidate, Spencer Zimmerman, has the ballot label “Trump Conservative.”
This New York Times story says the Democrats in the Senate are not united behind their election law bill, HR 1. Technically, in the Senate, the bill is known as S1, but it is the same bill.
This newspaper story says many candidates in New York city primaries must defend their petitions against challenges, which is normal in New York. Some had optimistically believed that petition challenges would go out of favor during the health crisis, but that is not the case.
On April 1, the Nevada Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee heard testimony on SB 292, the bill to double the petition requirement for new parties and to add a severe distribution requirement. The sponsor is Senator Roberta Lange, a former state chair of the Nevada Democratic Party. If the bill passed, the party petition would rise from 13,557 signatures to 27,114. The bill also moves the petition deadline from mid-June to early June.
No one testified for the bill, and representatives of the Constitution, Transhumanist, Libertarian, and Peoples Party testified against it. The committee will vote sometime in the future. During the hearing, Senator Lange said, “A person can vote for anyone they choose”, and the Senate Majority Leader, also a Democrat, praised the idea of giving more choices to voters. However, they weren’t referring to the ballot access parts of the bill; they were talking about the part of the bill that adds a straight-ticket device.
Senator Lange showed that she has not researched the ballot access laws of other states. When she presented her bill, she said that that Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina all require petitions to form a new party to be signed by 2% of the voters. Actually Kentucky requires 5,000 signatures, which is .33% of the last presidential vote cast; Missouri requires 10,000, which is .33% of the last presidential vote; North Carolina is .25% of the last gubernatorial vote; and Pennsylvania is 5,000 signatures, which is .07% of the last presidential vote. However, no one pointed this out in the hearing.
