The Maine Republican Party does not accept the Secretary of State’s determination that the referendum petition to freeze ranked-choice voting for president didn’t have at least 63,067 valid signatures. The party is double-checking all the rejected signatures and will appeal, either administratively, and if that doesn’t work, in court.
On July 21, U.S. District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee, an Obama appointee, denied ballot access relief to Joseph Kishore, presidential nominee of the Socialist Equality Party. Kishore v Newsom, c.d., 2:20cv-5859.
The lawsuit challenged the California independent procedure as applied to the health crisis, because the entire petitioning period is within the time when the health crisis has been upon us. The law requires 196,964 signatures to be collected from April 24 to August 7. The twelve-page order says the plaintiff should have ignored the independent petition procedure and instead tried to qualify his party. That takes approximately 68,000 registered party members. The decision says that the new party procedure can be used safely, because Californians can register to vote on-line, or can change their party affiliation on-line.
The decision also says that hundreds of thousands of signatures have been collected for initiatives in California in the last seven months, but does not acknowledge the evidence that the overwhelming majority of such signatures were collected before the health crisis began. The decision does not mention the California state court ruling that extended the petitioning period for initiatives. Kishore will appeal.
On July 17, the proponents of an Oregon statewide initiative filed this brief in the Ninth Circuit. People Not Politicians v Clarno, 20-35630. The U.S. District Court had granted ballot access relief for initiatives. This brief argues that the Ninth Circuit should not stay the U.S. District Court order.
Meanwhile, a similar case from Idaho will be argued on August 10, in a Ninth Circuit courtroom in Anchorage, Alaska. Reclaim Idaho v Little, 20-35584.
On July 21, the Third Circuit expedited the minor party ballot access lawsuit, Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania v Wolf, 20-2481. This is the case in which the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties ask for ballot access relief due to the health crisis. The U.S. District Court had denied all relief and had even written there is a state interest in keeping minor parties off the ballot so that the voters can concentrate to a larger extent on the major party nominees.
Here is the opening brief filed by the parties. The state’s response is due July 24; the reply brief is due July 26.
On July 20, the deadline for minor party and independent petitions in Illinois, five petitions were submitted for president: Kanye West as an independent; Kyle Kopitke as an independent; the Party for Socialism and Liberation; the Constitution Party; and the American Solidarity Party.
UPDATE: the petition for Don Blankenship for President has been removed from the Illinois State Board of Elections list, almost certainly becaues it did not have at least 250 signatures. Illinois State Board of Elections officials, for several years now, have been automatically rejecting petitions that don’t have at least 10% of the requirement. The requirement this year for president is 2,500 signatures.
Here is the list of petitioning candidates from the State Board of Elections. The list will be amended later to list the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian candidates for president, and the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate. They didn’t need to petition.
The Constitution Party petition for U.S. Senate, for Chad Koppie, is listed. All of the petitions are subject to challenge. The challenge must be filed no later than Monday, July 27. For U.S. House, the only minor party that submitted any petitions is the Libertarian Party, which has three candidates. The Green Party candidate listed for the Fifth District did not need to petition. There are three independents for U.S. House.
