On August 2, the Democratic National Committee moved the Democratic National Convention from July 13-16 to August 17-20.
The Republican convention continues to be set for August 24-27. Thanks to Political Wire for this news.
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Virginia holds its primaries (for office other than president) in June. Candidates for U.S. Senate needed 3,500 signatures. The law says they need 10,000, but a state court had lowered that last month to 3,500. Even though the new requirement was considerably easier than the legal requirement, and even though candidates could have been petitioning since January (before the lockdown), only three candidates had at least 3,500 valid signatures.
See this story. The candidate who filed the lawsuit that resulted in a lower requirement, Omari Faulkner, did not get on the ballot, because he had only submitted 3,769. Thanks to D.C. Sachs for the link. The story does not say how many valid signatures Faulkner had. Perhaps he would have qualified if he had asked the court to set the requirement at 3,000, instead of 3,500. Six Republicans had been trying to get on the ballot.
On April 1, the New York legislature passed the ballot access restrictions that had been invalidated last month. They increase the vote test for qualified party status, and increase the number of signatures for statewide independent candidate petitions, and for the nominees of unqualified parties, from 15,000 to 45,000 signatures. See this story. The Governor signed the bill on April 1.
These changes had been invalidated on March 12 by a State Supreme Court, on the basis that the legislature had not passed them. Now the legislature has passed them. These changes were included in the budget bill passed on April 1.
Case law is very clear that states cannot increase the number of signatures for ballot access in the election year. The U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed Hudler v Austin, in which a Michigan law that was passed in April 1976 was invalidated (as to the 1976 election), not on the merits, but because it was being enforced for the 1976 election. 419 F.Supp. 1002, (e.d.Mi.), Aug. 18, 1976; affirmed, 430 U.S. 924 (1977).
On January 7, 2014, a U.S. District Court in Ohio said that the new petition requirements for unqualified parties passed by the legislature on November 6, 2013, could not be enforced for the 2014 election. The new petition requirements would have been 55,806 signatures, due July 2, 2014. Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, s.d., 2:13cv-953, 2014 wL 11515569.
New Mexico Representative Patricio Ruiloba, a Democrat who was first elected in 2014, has been removed from the Democratic ballot because his primary petition accidentally omitted his district number. See this story.
No one else has filed for his seat. New Mexico permits write-ins in primaries.
The St. Louis initiative to use Approval Voting for the city’s elections for its own officers has enough valid signatures. In November 2020 the voters of St. Louis will vote on whether to use Approval Voting. Approval Voting lets a voter vote for as many candidates as desired, even if only one office is being filled. All votes cast count equally and which candidate has the most votes wins.