The Liberty Union Party, organized only in Vermont, has been running nominees for Vermont state office for 50 continuous years, starting in 1970. But in 2020, it has no nominees, other than Gloria La Riva for President.
The only minor parties in any state in the U.S. which have been on the ballot continuously for a longer period are the Conservative Party of New York (which had its first nominees in 1962), and the American Independent Party of California (1968).
In mid-August 2020, the Florida League of Women Voters changed its position on Amendment 3, the top-two initiative that is on the November 2020 ballot. See the League’s recommendation here.
Last year the Florida League had endorsed the measure.
On September 14, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an order in the Green Party ballot access case, which is called In Re Nomination Paper of Elizabeth Faye Scroggin, 55 MAP 2020. It says, “The Secretary of the Commonwealth is directed not to certify the final general election ballot pending further order of this Court.”
The Green Party statewide Pennsylvania statewide petition had enough valid signatures, and the party’s non-presidential nominees for statewide state office are on the ballot. The lawsuit is over whether Howie Hawkins should be on the ballot as a presidential candidate. The state had put him on, but the challengers say the paperwork concerning the stand-in is not acceptable. The Commonwealth Court had put Hawkins on the ballot.
On September 14, U.S. District Court Judge Irene C. Berger, an Obama appointee, issued an opinion in West v Warner, s.d., 2:20cv-570. West had submitted approximately 14,000 signatures to be an independent presidential candidate in West Virginia, but election officials found he didn’t have as many as 7,145 valid; instead only about 6,400 were valid.
West sued to say that the state must give him a chance to re-validate signatures. But the Judge said if he was concerned that the checking process wouldn’t be accurate or fair, he should have submitted his petitions on a piece-meal basis. Instead he turned all of them in on the August 3 petition deadline. It is true that West Virginia will permit petitions to be submitted in stages. The judge also said he didn’t submit any evidence of any particular signature that had been unfairly rejected. Here is the 10-page opinion.
This story says that members of Florida’s legislative Black Caucus have come out in opposition to the top-two initiative in Florida.
The story also quotes John Opdycke, President of Open Primaries (a group that supports top-two systems) as saying that California had closed primaries for state office before California switched to the top-two system. This is not true. California had semi-closed primaries for congress and state office between 2002 and 2010. John Opdycke knows this because he and I have had face-to-face conversations about this. The proof that California had semi-closed primaries, both Republican and Democratic, for congress and state office can be seen from the California Secretary of State’s website.
