Over the last few weeks, the Socialist Workers Party has been asking party supporters to donate their federal government stimulus checks to the party. The party has announced that it has raised $95,000 in this fund appeal. Stimulus checks, in whole or part, were donated to the party by 84 individuals.
This news story points out that Arizona does not allow school board candidates to collect electronic signatures, even though candidates for state office may do so. Some candidates for large school board need as many as 400 signatures.
On June 1, some candidates for Roanoke, Virginia city council filed a lawsuit for ballot access relief. Roanoke has partisan city elections, and the plaintiffs are not the nominees of qualified parties. See this story. They ask for a reduction in the number of signatures from 125 to 50, and an extension of the June 9 petition deadline. The case is Alberto v City of Roanoke, CL20000997-00.
UPDATE: here is the Complaint.
On May 29, the Working Families Party filed a federal lawsuit against the definition of a qualified party that passed on April 1, 2020. Hurley v Kosinski, s.d., 1:20cv-4148. The new definition requires a party to pass the vote test every two years instead of every four years. Furthermore, the new vote test is much harder than the old vote test. The old vote test was 50,000 for Governor; the new test if 130,000 or 2% (whichever is more) for the office at the top of the ticket every two years. Here is the Complaint.
The case has not yet been assigned to a judge. Thanks to Joe Burns for this news.
On June 1, the Ohio groups trying to get an initiative on the ballot asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the ruling of the U.S. District Court that had granted relief, and to lift the stay the Sixth Circuit had imposed on that relief. Thompson v DeWine. There is no case number yet. Here is the Supreme Court filing.
This is the first ballot access case involving the health crisis that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In the meantime, the request for Sixth Circuit rehearing is still pending.
