By 81%-19%, voters in Portland, Maine, voted to expand ranked choice voting so that it includes city council and school board races. See this story.
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New York state has cancelled the Republican presidential primary, because William Weld did not submit a complete slate of candidates for delegate. New York is the only state in which presidential primary candidates must not only petition for themselves, but must also submit a slate of delegates in each U.S. House district. Although Joe Walsh and Rocky De La Fuente had petitioned in New York for the Republican presidential primary, they did not submit any delegates. William Weld had petitioned for himself and had submitted some delegate candidates, and he was given more time to submit more delegates. But he did not submit any more delegate names, so he is off the ballot.
Because that left only President Donald Trump on the New York Republican presidential primary ballot, the state cancelled the primary. See this story.
On March 3, Texas held its primary for president and all other federal and state office. Rocky De La Fuente’s son, Ricardo De La Fuente, won the Democratic nomination for U.S. House in the Texas 27th district. See this story, which notes that both the father and son live in San Diego County, California. Thanks to several people for this news.
Here is another news story.
The district is currently represented by a Republican, Michael Cloud.
On February 26, Utah SB 28 passed the legislature. No one voted against it in either house of the legislature. It deletes the law requiring that independent candidates have a ballot label saying the candidate “does not qualify to be listed on the ballot as affiliated with a political party.” Instead, assuming the bill is signed, in the future, the label will simply be “unaffilated.”
The only independent candidate for any federal or state office on the Utah ballot in 2018, Marsha Holland, discovered after the election that many voters were confused by the label, and interpreted the label to mean that she was “unqualified” for the office. She filed a federal lawsuit. The state and she agreed to suspend the lawsuit until the legislature was given a chance to delete the old label. Assuming the Governor signs the bill, there will be no need for a judicial ruling.
On February 3, the Fourth Circuit upheld Maryland’s law on how a party remains on the ballot. Johnston v Lamone, 19-1783. The Libertarian Party argued that there is no state interest in requiring it to submit 10,000 signatures to get back on the ballot, given that it had approximately 22,000 registered members when the lawsuit was filed shortly after the November 2018 election. The court avoided this subject, and merely said that it is constitutional to require a higher standard for parties to remain on the ballot, than to get on in the first place.
The opinion will not be published, and therefore sets no precedent.
On the other issue, whether it is unconstitutional to require petition signers to list their name exactly as registered, the decision says that issue is not yet ripe, and that if it is a problem exists with petition validity after the Libertarian Party submits its 2020 party petition, then a new lawsuit could be filed.