Eleventh Circuit Says 2017 Lawsuit on Ex-Felon Voting is Moot

Posted on by January 13, 2020
1

In 2017, a U.S. District Court in Florida ruled that the state’s procedures for ex-felons to ask the Governor to restore their voting rights violates due process, because it gave the Governor complete discretion, with no objective standards. The state appealed and got the opinion stayed.

On January 10, 2020, the Eleventh Circuit said the case is moot, and terminated it. The opinion says that in November 2018, when Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment ending ex-felon disenfranchisement for most crimes, the law changed so drastically that the Hand case doesn’t matter any more.

U.S. Supreme Court Takes No Action on Presidential Elector Cases

Posted on by January 13, 2020
2

On January 13, the U.S. Supreme Court released the list of actions taken at the January 10 conference. Although both cases involving “disobedient” presidential electors were on the January 10 conference, the Court did not act on either of them. They will be considered again at the January 17 conference. The two cases are Colorado Department of State v Baca, 19-518; and Chiafalo v Washington State, 19-465.

Rocky De La Fuente Drops His Ballot Access Appeal in Arizona

Posted on by January 12, 2020
147

In 2016, Rocky De La Fuente sued Arizona over its independent presidential primary ballot access law. It required almost twice as many signatures as were needed for a new party in 2016. The independent presidential petition requirement was 35,514 signatures, but the party petition was 20,119. Courts in Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina had held that it is unconstitutional for a state to require more signatures for a single independent candidate than for an entire new party.

Also, the Arizona independent presidential petition had not been used since 2008, and the U.S. Supreme Court has said that ballot access procedures that are seldom used are probably unconstitutional.

The case moved very slowly, but finally in 2019, a U.S. District Court Magistrate upheld the law. De La Fuente appealed to the Ninth Circuit. However, on January 9, 2020, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal because De La Fuente had failed to file his opening brief by the deadline.

This had been De La Fuente’s only ongoing ballot access case that relates to getting on the ballot in the general election.

Filing Closes for Louisiana Presidential Primary

Posted on by January 11, 2020
5

On January 10, filing closed for Louisiana presidential primaries. Candidates get on the ballot with a filing fee of $750.

The Independent Party is the first party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, to have its own presidential primary in Louisiana. Qualified parties with at least 40,000 registered members qualify. However, no one filed in the Independent Party presidential primary.

Five Republicans filed: Rocky De La Fuente, Bob Ely, Matthew John Matern, Donald Trump, and Bill Weld.

Fourteen Democrats filed: Michael Bennet, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, Deval Patrick, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, Robby Wells, and Andrew Yang. Thanks to J. Bradley Jansen for this news.