On March 30, U.S. House member Mark Meadows resigned his seat in the North Carolina 11th district. Probably his seat will now remain vacant until either November 2020 or January 2021. There might be a special election in November 2020 to fill the seat for the two-month period until January 2021.

Theoretically a special election could be called earlier, but the state is not likely to do that, because the law would also require primaries, and possibly even a run-off primary, and all that is expensive.

On March 26, some Wisconsin civic groups, labor unions, and voting rights organizations, asked a U.S. District Court to postpone the April 7 primary. Here is the Complaint in Lewis v Knudson, 3:20cv-284 (w.d.). Among many other problems, the Complaint mentions that mail-in ballots must include not only the voter’s signature, but the signatures of a witness who is an adult U.S. citizen. Also, mailed absentee ballots don’t count unless they are received by election officials by April 7.

A somewhat similar lawsuit filed in the Eastern District on March 24 failed to achieve any relief, because U.S. District Court Judge William C. Griesbach, a Bush Jr. appointee, said none of the plaintiffs have standing. Here is the March 27 order in City of Green Bay v Bostelmann. The plaintiffs were the city and its Mayor.

The April 7 election is for the presidential primary, and non-partisan judicial races, including a State Supreme Court election. The primary for partisan offices other than president is not until August 11.

Lewis v Knudson is before U.S. District Court Judge William Conley, an Obama appointee who had already postponed the Wisconsin voter registration deadline to March 30 in another lawsuit, Democratic National Committee v Bostelmann, w.d., 3:20cv-249.

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted a second month’s extention to the Arizona Secretary of State, in Arizona Libertarian Party v Hobbs, 19-757. This is the case that challenges the petition requirements for members of small qualified parties to place candidates on their own primary ballot. Originally Arizona wasn’t going to respond, but the Court asked for a response, which was to be submitted March 2. Then the state won an extension to April 1, and now the state’s response is due May 1.

In the meantime, the 2020 election will be the third election in which the restriction is in place. In 2016 and 2018, the law, passed in 2015, kept all Libertarians running for congress and state office off the ballot. The law only applied to the Libertarian Party, not the Green Party, and many Greens were on the ballot in Arizona in 2016 and 2018. Now, however, the Green Party is no longer on the ballot. So for the first time since 1976, there probably won’t be any third party candidates on the Arizona ballot for Congress in 2020.