On April 30, a Colorado state trial court put Lorena Garcia on the Democratic primary ballot for U.S. Senate, even though she didn’t collect the needed 10,500 valid signatures. See this story. The candidate, Lorena Garcia, had collected more signatures than Michelle Warren had. The same judge had put Warren on the ballot on April 21, so it would have been surprising if he had not also put Garcia on.
On April 30, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg said that she will not require Georgia to pay the postage both ways, for postal ballots, as applied to the June 9, 2020 primary. But she left the door open for the run-off primary in August and the general election in November. Black Voters Matter v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:20cv-1489. Here is the order. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
See this newspaper story about the Arkansas lawsuit to obtain relief for independent candidates. The article reveals that state officials are not conciliatory.
On April 30, several independent candidates in Arkansas filed this brief in Whitfield v Thurston, e.d., 4:20cv-466. This is the case that asks for petitioning relief, due to the health crisis. The petition deadline for non-presidential independents is May 1.
On April 29, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued an opinion, authorizing electronic signatures for initiative petitions. See this story. The order doesn’t seem to be on the Court’s webpage yet. When it is, this blog post will be amended to include a link to the decision. The case is Dennis v Galvin, SJ-2020-278.
