The Alaska Elections office has determined that the Libertarian Party presidential petition has enough valid signatures.
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On August 7, a Montana state trial court removed the Green Party from the ballot. Montana Democratic Party v State, DDV-2020-856. The law requires 5,000 signatures, but also requires an unequal distribution requirement from one-third of the state legislative districts. Some districts need as many as 150 signatures, but others require as few as 55 signatures. Over 13,000 people had signed the petition to put the Green Party on the 2020 ballot, and only 562 signers then withdrew their names. So the petition still would have had far more signatures than necessary, except that the withdrawn signatures were from certain legislative districts, so the petition failed the distribution requirement.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down unequal distribution requirements for statewide petitions in 1969 in Moore v Ogilvie, and since then lower courts have invalidated them in ten states.
The reason any signers withdrew their names is that the Democratic Party contacted them and asked them to remove their names. There is no state law in Montana that authorizes signers to remove their names from a petition for a new party. Furthermore, the state had already held a Green Party primary on June 2, 2020. But because the law does explicitly permit signers to remove their names from initiative petitions, the judge felt that the guiding principle is that signers can withdraw their names from any petition.
This is the second election in a row in which the Montana Green Party petition was first accepted, and a primary was held, and then afterwards the state courts removed the party from the ballot. The Republican Party had arranged for the paid petitioners for both party petitions. The Green Party did not really want to be a qualified party in 2020 (although it did in 2018), but it did want to petition for president. However, the presidential petition, which requires 5,000 signatures with no distribution requirement, is due August 12, and there is no time to do it.
The Montana Green Party has a federal case pending in the Ninth Circuit against the unequal distribution requirement, but it will not be resolved in time for the 2020 election. That case is Montana Green Party v Stapleton, 20-35340.
The Secretary of State, who is a Republican, will probably appeal the decision to the Montana Supreme Court. However, in 2018, the Montana Supreme Court removed the Green Party, so it is not likely that the Secretary of State will win his appeal.
The August 7, 2020 decision says the Democratic Party has standing because the party “would be harmed electorally because voters who might otherwise vote for the Democratic Party candidates might vote instead for Green Party candidates.”
On August 3, the Sixth Circuit issued a six-page opinion in Hawkins v DeWine, 20-3717. This is the ballot access case filed by the Ohio Green Party, in connection with the health crisis. The opinion simply says that because the Sixth Circuit has already denied relief for Ohio initiatives, that it is obvious that the Green Party is not entitled to relief either. This is not necessarily accurate. The U.S. Constitution has more protection for voting rights for candidates, than it does for initiatives.
The opinion is by Judge R. Guy Cole, a Clinton appointee. It is also signed by Judge Eugene E. Siler, a Ford appointee; and Jane B. Stranch, an Obama appointee.
On August 6, the Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, vetoed the bill that would have asked voters in November 2020 whether they want to reinstate ranked-choice voting for elections for city officers. He said it will cost less to have the measure on the March 2021 ballot. See this story.
On July 31, the Eighth Circuit stayed the decision of the U.S. District Court in the Minnesota Democratic Party lawsuit over the order of candidates on the ballot. Thus for the November 2020 election, the statutory law will remain in effect. It is a unique law that says the order of the nominees of the ballot-qualified parties is inverse to how well they did in the previous general election. So, the nominees of the two ballot-qualified marijuana parties will be placed first, followed by Republican nominees, followed by Democratic nominees. Next come the nominees of the unqualified parties and the independent candidates.
The Democratic Party had filed this lawsuit last year, and had won in U.S. District Court. It is surprising that the Eighth Circuit granted a stay, because the state government had not appealed to the Eighth Circuit. The Minnesota Secretary of State, Steve Simon, is a Democrat and he was satisfied with the U.S. District Court decision, which had told him to hold a random drawing to determine the order of the qualified parties. The appeal to the Eighth Circuit was taken by the Donald Trump re-election committee and various units of the national and state Republican Parties.
Here is the 6-page order of the Eighth Circuit in Pavek v Simon, 20-2410. Back in 1980, the Eighth Circuit had struck down North Dakota’s law on the order of parties on ballots. The new Eighth Circuit opinion says the issue in North Dakota was different, because North Dakota’s law, putting the party first that had won the last gubernatorial election, helped cement the parties that were already entrenched. But the Minnesota law is different, because it helps weaker parties. The three judges are James B. Loken (a Bush Sr. appointee), Bobby Shepherd (Bush Jr.) and L. Steven Grasz (Trump).