Tuesday, June 8, is the deadline for independent candidate petitions, and petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties, in both New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections. The New Jersey deadline is 4 p.m. The New Jersey election office website shows that the Green Party and the Socialist Workers Party have both submitted their petitions, but there will probably be more filings by the end of the day.
On June 7, proponents of Ohio initiatives appealed their Ohio case to the Sixth Circuit. Here is the opening brief in Thompson v DeWine, 21-3514. The brief points out that the Sixth circuit granted petitioning relief due to the health crisis in two Michigan cases, and the theory behind the Michigan decisions contradicts the theory used in this case.
Darryl Perry has this letter in the Union Leader, the largest newspaper in New Hampshire. It points out that HB 98, the bill to move the non-presidential primary from September to August, is flawed. Because New Hampshire requires independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties to file declarations of candidacy several months before the primary, if the bill is passed in its current form, minor parties that hadn’t nominated a presidential candidate by mid-May would not be able to get on the ballot.
There is no rational reason that New Hampshire requires petitioning candidates to file any declaration of candidacy months before the petition is due, and that is especially true for presidential candidates.
On June 7, Vermont Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, signed SB 15. It provides that all active registered voters will automatically receive a ballot in the mail. Vermont used that system in 2020 but it was under a law that said it was only temporary. But now it is in place for all future elections.
Various California newspapers are now reporting that Superior Court Judge James P. Arguelles, who granted more time for the gubernatorial recall petition last November due to the health crisis, was formerly a law firm colleague of the attorney for the recall committee, Bradley Benbrook. The story interviews experts on legal ethics, who say that this is not necessarily a problem, although many expressed the opinion that the judge could have at least acknowledged the relationship before he ruled, and could have asked if either side had any objections. See the story here.
California judges, both federal and state, were inconsistent during 2020 on whether the health crisis justified extending ballot access relief. The Common Sense Party asked for relief in both federal and state court, but lost both cases. Two presidential candidates who tried to use the independent presidential petition procedure, Don Blankenship (Constitution Party) and Joseph Kishore (Socialist Equality Party) also asked for relief in federal courts in California but did not receive any relief.
By contrast, courts in D.C., Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Utah, and Virginia, all granted relief.
