On April 1, James R. Adams filed this brief in his lawsuit over the Delaware law that does not allow registered independents to become judges on the important state courts. The state is trying to persuade the U.S. District Court that he doesn’t have standing, so the new Adams brief deals with standing. Adams v Carney, 1:20cv-1680.
On April 6, the city of Alva, Oklahoma, held elections for city office. Troy Brooks, a registered Libertarian, won for City Council, ward 3, defeating his only opponent 381-343. The election was non-partisan.
Alva is in northwestern Oklahoma, near the Kansas state line, and has a population of about 5,000. Thanks to Chris Powell for this news.
On April 8, Indiana told the U.S. Supreme Court that it doesn’t wish to respond to the cert petition in Tully v Okeson, 20-1244. This is the case that challenges the state law letting voters age 65 and over vote by postal ballot for any reason, but which does not allow younger voters to do so unless they will be away from their home area on election day.
Of course, if the U.S. Supreme Court asks Indiana to respond, then the state will respond.
Also on April 8, a group of historians filed an amicus brief in support of the voters who brought the case.
On April 8, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an opinion in Re: the Nomination Petitions of Rania Major, 15 EAP 2021. It holds that a signature on a petition is invalid unless the signer lists the address at which he or she is registered. Here is the 13-page opinion.
A few years ago the same court came to the opposite conclusion, but in 2019 the statute was amended. The old statute said signers should show their “residence” address on the petition. The new law says they should show the address at which they are registered.
On September 8, 2020, the Arizona Supreme Court issued a brief order in West v Clayton, cv-20-0249, keeping independent presidential candidate Kanye West off the November 2020 ballot. It said it would explain later why it did that. But eight months has now passed and still the court has not issued its explanation.
The Arizona 2020 Kanye West petition easily gathered more signatures than any other candidate or political party petition in any state in 2020. West allegedly spent $1,000,000 on the petition, and obtained over 70,000 signatures. The signatures were never checked, but they were probably valid, because the requirement was 40,670 signatures.
