The Republican Party of Maine has been conducting a referendum petition to stop the use of ranked choice voting for president in the general election. The party needs approximately 63,000 valid signatures. According to this story, in order to continue to collect signatures, the party has set up centers at which voters may drive to the location and sign the petition without leaving their car. Thanks to Fairvote for the link.
On March 23, a lawsuit was filed in Virginia state court, asking that the normal requirement of 10,000 signatures for a candidate to get on a statewide primary ballot be suspended due to the health emergency. The lawsuit is filed by Omari Faulkner, a Republican running for U.S. Senate. Faulkner is represented by Jason Torchinsky, a specialist in election law.
Here is the Complaint in Faulkner for Virginia v Virginia State Board of Elections, which was filed in the Circuit Court for the city of Richmond.
There are six declared Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate race. Here is information about Faulkner. The Complaint says that Faulkner has collected 3,769 signatures. The deadline is March 26. The Complaint asks that the requirement be set at 3,500 signatures. It notes that New York has already administratively cut the number of signatures needed for primary candidates to 30% of the normal requirement. Thanks to D.C. Sachs for this news.
On March 24, the League of Women Voters of Ohio, and the Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute, filed this amicus brief in State ex rel Ohio Democratic Party v LaRose. This case arose when the Secretary of State moved the March 17 primary for president and all other partisan office, to June. The League & the Randolph Institute say there are in support of neither party, but they argue that the Secretary of State cannot freeze voter registration. When the Secretary of State moved the primary, he said no new voter registrations would be processed. Anyone who hadn’t registered by February could not participate in the June primary.
On March 23, Rhode Island moved its presidential primary from April 28 to June 2. Thanks to FrontloadingHQ for this news.
The Texas Secretary of State has ruled that the non-presidential independent candidate petition deadline this year will be August 13. That is because the law says that deadline is 30 days after the runoff primary, and the Secretary of State had already moved the runoff primary to July 14.
However, the Texas presidential independent candidate deadline continues to be May 11, because the law on that deadline does not tie the deadline to the primary date. It seems obvious that if Texas is going to let independent candidates for office other than president submit their petitions in August, there is no valid reason not to let independent presidential candidates have the same deadline. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
