On August 14, U.S. District Court Judge Lance E. Walker, a Trump appointee, refused to enjoin Maine from using ranked-choice voting. Hagopian v Dunlap, 1:20cv-257. Here is the 18-page order. It is very readable and interesting, for any reader who is interested in alternative voting systems.
On August 14, the New Mexico Libertarian Party won injunctive relief in its lawsuit to obtain a fair count of the number of write-ins in the Libertarian primary for State Appeals Court, position two. The Libertarian candidate, Stephen Curtis, was the only candidate for that office in the party’s primary, but he was a write-in candidate, so he needed 270 write-in votes. The state canvass said he only polled 246 write-ins.
However, from the election returns, it was obvious that the vote count wasn’t accurate. In the state’s most populous county, Bernalillo, the canvass showed that 270 write-ins were cast, but only 41 were cast for Curtis.
The injunction requires the Secretary of State to direct the Bernalillo County elections office to do a more complete job of checking for write-ins. Curtis v Oliver, 1:20cv-748. The opinion is 173 pages long and is very scholarly. It is by U.S. District Court Judge James O. Browning, a Bush Jr. appointee.
This lawsuit is very important to the Libertarian Party, because it needs to poll 5% (of the presidential vote) for one of its nominees, in order to retain its status as a qualified major party. Voters are much more likely to vote for a minor party candidate in a race in which the voter doesn’t care passionately who wins, and State Court of Appeals is that type of race. There are both a Republican and a Democratic nominee in that race as well. In 2018 the New Mexico Libertarian Party polled 5.77% for Land Commissioner, a race with both a Republican and a Democrat, so it is somewhat plausible that in 2020 Curtis can receive 5%.
As previously reported, some Illinois Election Board officials are trying to persuade the Seventh Circuit to reverse the ballot access relief won in April 2020. Libertarian Party of Illinois v Pritzker, 20-1961.
On August 14, the Illinois minor parties submitted this two-page notice of supplemental authority, notifying the Seventh Circuit judges of the August 13 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Republican National Committee v Common Cause Rhode Island. In the Rhode Island case, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay the decision of lower federal courts in Rhode Island that granted relief to absentee voters in Rhode Island. The U.S. Supreme Court said on August 13 that because Rhode Island government had consented to the relief, therefore that relief will not be disturbed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Illinois letter brief points out that Illinois had also consented to the April 2020 ballot access relief.
On August 13, the Mayor of Washington, D.C., signed B23-0864. It lowers the number of signatures for independent presidential candidates, and the presidential nominees of unqualified parties, from approximately 5,000 signatures, to exactly 250 signatures. The law only pertains to the 2020 election.
On August 12, the Montana Democratic Party filed this 119-page brief in Davis v Stapleton, 6:20cv-62. This is the case over whether it violates due process for Montana to remove the Green Party from the ballot. On August 14, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen gave permission for the Democratic Party to intervene in the case.
