On March 18, the Democratic National Committee sued Wisconsin over restrictions that make it difficult for voters to register. Wisconsin has long had election-day registration, so many residents are accustomed to registering at the polls on election day. But that doesn’t work well for absentee voters. Here is the Complaint in Democratic National Committee v Bostelmann, w.d., 3:20cv-249. It is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge William Conley, an Obama appointee.
On March 19, the Ohio Libertarian Party asked the Ohio Supreme Court to let it intervene in the Democratic Party’s lawsuit over the timing of the Ohio primary. The Ohio Libertarian Party is ballot-qualified and has its own primary. That primary had been set for March 17, but the Secretary of State ordered polls not to open and then said the primary would be rescheduled for June.
The Ohio Libertarian brief points out that in 2008, a U.S. District Court in Ohio ruled that the Secretary of State did not have the power to re-write the state’s ballot access laws, at least concerning federal elections. The U.S. Constitution says state legislatures had to write such laws. The Ohio Libertarian brief also points out that the Ohio legislature has not delegated the power to set primary dates to the Secretary of State.
The case is State ex rel Ohio Democratic Party v LaRose, 2020-0388.
Ballotpedia has this page, tracking state changes to election administration caused by the current health crisis.
The Politic, the Yale College Journal of Politics, has this article by Maayan Schoen criticizing U.S. ballot access laws. The Politic traces its beginnings back to 1947.
The article has a special emphasis on Alabama, which has the most severe mandatory petition requirement for statewide independent candidates and new parties in the nation. The author interviewed Alabama Secretary of State John H. Merrill, who said that it doesn’t matter if independent and minor party candidates are kept off the ballot, because they wouldn’t win anyway. He even cited the existence of Alabama’s straight-ticket device as evidence that they wouldn’t win, because, as he says, a majority of Alabama voters use the device to vote for all nominees of the Republican and Democratic Parties.
On March 19, Tulsi Gabbard withdrew from the Democratic presidential race and endorsed Joe Biden.
