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).
This news story says that some witnesses assert that Kanye West’s independent presidential petition in Wisconsin was filed 18 seconds too late. The individual filing the papers was in front of the state elections office before 5 p.m., but the door was locked and she had to phone the office to be let in. By the time she was in the correct office inside the building, and was handing over the papers, it was 18 seconds past 5 p.m. However, a reasonable interpretation, especially in the time of government buildings that are locked during business hours, is that filing is timely if the filer is at the front door. By analogy, voters who arrive at the door of a polling place at the moment of closing are permitted to vote, even if the line prevents them from actually voting by the closing hour.
Georgia holds a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 5th district, on Tuesday, September 29. Filing closed on July 31. Anyone can get on the ballot without a petition, by paying the filing fee of $5,220. Here is the list of seven candidates. They include five Democrats, one Libertarian, and one independent. No Republican filed. The seat is empty because of the death of John Lewis. Use the link, and then input “September 29” in the question about election date.
If no one gets a majority on September 29, there will be a runoff on December 1. The new Democratic nominee for this district, Nikema Williams (who was chosen by a Democratic Party meeting) chose not to run in the special election.
The Natural Law Party only exists in Michigan, where it has been continuously ballot-qualified since 2002. As it had indicated earlier that it would do, this year its presidential nominee is Rocky De La Fuente. Here is the partial Michigan Secretary of State candidate listing, although so far it doesn’t include Democratic or Republican nominees.
