This news story says the Arizona Independent Party will function as the state affiliate of the Forward Party.
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On October 30, three New York counties, and many town governments, and the New York Republican Party, filed a federal lawsuit over the 2023 law change that moved local elections from odd yera to even years. Mew York Republican State Committee v Hochul, e.d., 2:25cv-6073. Here is the Complaint. It argues that the law violates the First Amendment, because under the new law, the voices of candidates for local office will be drowned out by all the hoopla over the federal and state election campaigns going on simultaneously.
The case is assigned to a Magistrate Judge. Presidents don’t appoint magistrates; they are chosen by the judges.
On November 5, the Wyoming House Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee introduced a bill to drastically increase the difficulty for independent candidates to get on the ballot. Already Wyoming requires a higher percentage of the electorate to get on the ballot for presidential candidates running outside the two major parties. The bill wold increase the statewide independent petition from 2% of the last U.S. House vote, to 3%. It increases the petition for independent candidates for the legislature to 5%.
Also, it moves the independent candidate petition deadline from August to late May. Here is the text. The bill doesn’t yet have a bill number.
Secretary of State Chuck Gray, a Republican, is the force behind this idea.
On November 4, Andrew Cuomo was decisively defeated for Mayor of New York City. There are many reasons for his loss. One of them, which has not been acknowledged in general news media, was that he was responsible for removing the Green, Libertarian, SAM, and Independence Parties from the ballot in 2020.
In November 2024, therefore, voters who wanted to vote for the presidential nominees of the Green and Libertarian Parties were forced to cast a write-in vote. Within New York City, 26,443 voters cast a write-in for Jill Stein, and 1,369 cast one for Chase Oliver. Those voters were injured by Cuomo’s actions, and certainly motivated them not to vote for Cuomo.
Cuomo hurt other minor parties as well, because he forced the legislature to triple the number of signatures for statewide independent candidates. Claudia De la Cruz would have been on the ballot without this change. She received 4,176 write-ins in New York City.
On November 4, Georgetown, South Carolina, held an election for Mayor and City Council. The election was a partisan election. Forward Party nominee Jay Doyle was elected Mayor, defeating the incumbent Republican, Carol Jayroe. The vote was 1,246 for Doyle, and 972 for Jayroe. Here is Doyle’s campaign website.
Georgetown has a population of 9,163 and is the county seat of Georgetown County.
As far as is known, this is the first time any third party has ever won a partisan election in South Carolina since 1894, when some Independent Democrats were elected to the state legislature. Although Strom Thurmond, States Rights Democratic Party, carried South Carolina in 1948, he was the Democratic Party nominee. The South Carolina Democratic Party had refused to list Harry Truman as its presidential nominee.