On April 3, U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Walker again refused to stay his own opinion in Jacobson v Lee, the case over the order of candidates on the Florida November ballot. Earlier he had struck down the law, which gave the top line to all the nominees of the party that won the last gubernatorial election.
On April 6, the Independent Party of Florida, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, filed a request for injunctive relief in U.S. District Court, in their lawsuit to overturn the law that prevents them from putting a presidential nominee on the Florida ballot. Independent Party of Florida v Lee, n.d., 4:20cv-110.
The two parties are both ballot-qualified in Florida, but in September 2016 the Secretary of State, for the first time, decided to enforce a 2011 law that says ballot-qualified parties can’t place a presidential nominee on the ballot unless they Federal Election Commission recognizes them as a “national committee”, or unless they submit a petition of 1% of the registered voters (which this year requires 132,781 signatures).
The 2011 law was not enforced in 2012 because the Secretary of State said at the time that he had no official knowledge of which parties are recognized as “national committees.” But a different Secretary of State in September 2016 reversed that decision (without even acknowledging the old policy) and removed the presidential nominees of those two parties from the ballot. The Independent Party’s presidential nominee in 2016 was Evan McMullin, an independent candidate who polled 731,733 votes in the nation even though he was only on the ballot in eleven states.
On the evening of April 6, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn the Seventh Circuit decision that let Wisconsin absentee ballots arrive as late as April 13, for the April 7 election. See the order here.
At approximately 5 p.m. Wisconsin time, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-2 that the April 7 election for judicial offices should proceed. The State Supreme Court Justice who is running for re-election recused himself. See this story. Many polling places have no officials to open the voting site.
Here is the order, which does not explain the rationale.
Soon after Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers postponed the April 7 judicial election, the Republican Party asked the State Supreme Court to rule that the election should go ahead on April 7. See this story.
