On April 16, the SAM Party, a ballot-qualified party in New York, filed an amended complaint in its ballot access case.  As before, the new complaint challenges the requirement that a party must poll 130,000 votes for president, or 2% for president, whichever is more, in order to stay on the ballot.

As the original complaint explained, SAM does not desire to run anyone for president, yet the new law forces it to run for president, or lose its status as a qualified party.  The amended complaint is needed because the law that SAM is attacking was declared unconstitutional in state court earlier this year, so then the legislature passed the same requirement in March 2020 as part of the budget.  The amended complaint explains that New York legislative rules do not permit the legislature to amend the budget bill, so legislators had to vote for the bill or else they had to vote against the entire budget.

The case has a new judge.  It had originally been assigned to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, but now it is assigned to Judge John G. Koeltl.  Both are Clinton appointees.  SAM Party v Kosinski, s.d. 1:20cv-323.

On April 16, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments in Goldstein v Galvin, SJ-2020-150, the case in which some primary candidates ask for easier methods to get on the September 1 primary ballot.

Here is an article describing the hearing.  The Secretary of State supports easing the requirements for congress by 50%, but he does not favor easing the requirements for legislature.  He supports moving the deadline for state office petitions from April 28 to May 5 (the congressional primary petitions are due May 5).

The plaintiffs favor a cut for all petitions to one-third of the existing requirement, and a later deadline, and use of electronic signatures.

The Court is aware that a proposal similar to the Secretary of State’s recommendations passed the State Senate on April 16, and they expressed a wish that the House would pass it quickly, but there is no guarantee, and there is very little time.  The bill is S2632.  All it does is cut the number of signatures for U.S. Senate from 10,000 to 5,000; the number of signatures for U.S. House from 2,000 to 1,000; and the number of signatures for Governor’s Council from 1,000 signatures to 500 signatures.  It only applies to 2020, not future years.

On April 15, supporters of Maine’s ranked choice voting filed a lawsuit in state court, arguing that the Republican Party’s petition to stop using ranked choice voting for president is invalid.  The lawsuit depends on a technical point.  When the legislature passes a law, Maine allows a petition to freeze the new law, and the Republican Party has been circulating such a petition.

The lawsuit says the petition can’t have any legal effect, even if it gets enough signatures, because the procedure only applies to laws that have not yet gone into effect.  The lawsuit argues the ranked choice procedure for president is already in effect.  The effective date is complicated because the Governor allowed the measure (which passed the legislature last year) to go into effect without her signature, and the effective date in such cases is complicated.  See this story.  Thanks to Fairvote for the link.