Vermont held primaries on August 11. In the Democratic primary for Governor, David Zuckerman, a long-time leader of the Progressive Party, won the Democratic nomination. He is currently the Lieutenant Governor. When he was elected Lieutenant Governor in 2018, his ballot label was “Progressive/Democrat”. It is not known what his ballot label will be in November 2020. But it will be “Progressive/Democrat” if that is what he desires.
This is very old news, but it had not been reported at Ballot Access News previously. On March 14, 2018, Wyoming HB 40 was signed into law. It repealed the law that said if a voter signed more than one independent candidate petition for the same office, only the first signature counted. This bill was a general election code bill passed in the budget session, so BAN missed it back in 2018.
In 2016, Evan McMullin, an independent presidential candidate, petitioned in Wyoming. He had enough valid signatures, except that enough of his signers had already signed for Jill Stein and/or Rocky De La Fuente, that he did not qualify. They, of course, had petitioned before he had, because he had not entered the race until August 10, 2016. Thanks to Kara Ramsey for this news.
On August 12, the New Mexico Libertarian Party filed this reply brief in Curtis v Oliver, 1:20cv-748. This is the case over whether the party’s candidate for one of the statewide state offices received enough write-ins in the Libertarian primary to be considered nominated. Some counties clearly did not tally the write-ins. The candidate only needs 26 more write-ins to be considered qualified for the November ballot.
On August 10, Jo Jorgensen dismissed her Maine ballot access lawsuit, because she had enough valid signatures, so the case is moot. It was a case concerning the health crisis.
The Tampa Bay Times has this story about Florida’s Amendment Three, the top-two initiative. The story features an analysis that shows Black representation in the Florida legislature would likely decline if the amendment took effect. Toward the bottom, the story also mentions the problem that top-two sometimes disenfranchises members of one of the major parties. It points out that in 2018, there were two Republican candidates for Governor in the primary, but five Democrats. So plausibly, if top-two had been in effect, the November 2018 ballot would have carried only two Republicans for Governor.
