On July 22, Dan Whitfield, independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Arkansas, filed this opening brief in the Eighth Circuit in Whitfield v Thurston, 20-2309. This is a health crisis ballot access case. The U.S. District Court had denied injunctive relief, so he won’t be on the ballot unless he wins in the Eighth Circuit.
There is no Democratic nominee in the Arkansas U.S. Senate race. So far the only two candidates on the November ballot are the Republican and Libertarian nominees.
On July 22, four Maine voters filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that ranked=choice voting violates their voting rights. Hagopian v Dunlap, 1:20cv-257. They argue that voters who choose to vote for only one candidate are being injured. Here is the Complaint.
The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker, who already upheld ranked-choice voting in another lawsuit two years ago. The hearing is set for July 27 at 1 p.m.
On July 23, the Ninth Circuit rejected Oregon’s request for a stay in People Not Politicians v Clarno, 20-35630. Here is the order. The vote was 2-1, with a dissent by Judge Consuelo Callahan. Thanks to Steve Kamp for this news. This is the case over whether statewide initiatives in Oregon should get ballot access relief, due to the health crisis. The lower court had granted such relief.
This outcome is similar to the outcome so far in Idaho, another state in which a U.S. District Court granted relief for initiatives, and the state asked for a stay, and the Ninth Circuit rejected the state’s request.
On July 23, the Eighth Circuit issued an opinion in Miller v Thurston, 20-2095. This case involves ballot access relief for statewide Arkansas initiatives. The U.S. District Court had granted such relief, but the Circuit Court reversed that decision. The decision is by Judge L. Steven Grasz, a Trump appointee. It is also signed by Judge Roger Wollman, a Reagan appointee; and Raymond Gruender, a Bush Jr. appointee.
On July 21, the Fourth Circuit issued an opinion in Baten v McMaster, 19-1297. This is one of the cases challenging a state’s practice of electing all its presidential electors at-large. Other such cases had recently been filed in Texas, California, and Massachusetts. None of them ever received support from any judge, until this decision came out. Judge James A. Wynn dissented, and wrote a lengthy dissent explaining why the case should have won. Here is the 65-page decision. The dissent begins on page 29. Judge Wynn argues that the precedents on this issue do not control this case.
Judge Wynn is an Obama appointee from North Carolina. He had previously written a Fourth Circuit opinion striking down North Carolina’s districts as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, but the U.S. Supreme Court had reversed.
