U.S. District Court Judge Wilhelmina Wright will hear Craig v Simon, 0:20cv-2066, on Wednesday, October 7, at 9 a.m. This is the case over whether Minnesota’s law, requiring a postponement of a congressional election until February 2021, violates the 1872 federal law that tells states to hold congressional elections in November of even-numbered years. The state law says if the nominee of a major party dies within 79 days of the general election, the election must be postponed. The Democratic nominee is suing the state to have her election in November.

The Oklahoma November 2020 ballot does not list the names of candidates for presidential elector. This is the first time ever that the Oklahoma ballot has omitted their names.

A recent law gives the State Board of Elections the discretion to remove the names of the electors. The Board decided to remove them this year because there are six presidential candidates on the ballot. With seven presidential elector candidates for each candidate, putting the electors on the ballot would have added 42 names, which takes a fair amount of space.

This year Oklahoma has more presidential candidates on its November ballot than ever before. The previous largest number of presidential candidates was in 1908, when there were five: the nominees of the Democratic, Republican, Socialist, Prohibition, and Independence Parties.

On September 28, Angela Craig, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota law that says an election in her district can’t be held on November 3. Craig v Simon, 0:20cv-2066. Here is her Brief, which was filed on September 29.

The reason the Minnesota Secretary of State had announced that no election would be held in the Second District is that one of the candidates, Adam Weeks, had died on September 21. The state law, passed in 2013, says if the nominee of a qualified party dies within 79 days of an election, the election is postponed til the second Tuesday in February of the following year. The lawsuit depends on the 1872 federal law, 2 USC 7, that tells states to hold congressional elections in November. Thanks to Steve Kamp for this news.

The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Wilhelmina Wright, an Obama appointee.