Wisconsin holds a judicial primary election on February 18, 2020. A State Supreme Court seat is on that ballot. On December 13, an Ozaukee County Circuit Judge ordered the State Board of Elections to remove 234,000 registered voters, all of whom either did not respond to an October 2019 mailing asking them to re-affirm their residence, or for whom the post office could not deliver the notice. See this story. Wisconsin has election-day registration.
California elects Superior Court Judges in non-partisan elections. In the March 3, 2020 election in Los Angeles County, a candidate is running for that office. His name at birth was Michael Richard Cummins, but several years ago he changed his name, so that now his legal name is Judge Mike Cummins. He has an opponent who is suing to prevent him from using his name on the ballot. See this story.
On December 16, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear De La Fuente v Padilla, 19-524, the California case over the independent presidential petition, which requires almost 200,000 signatures, to be collected in 105 days. No one has complied with the petition since 1992. At the oral argument, the Ninth Circuit had discussed the uncontradicted evidence in the case that the law is not needed to prevent ballot crowding. But when the opinion case out, there was no acknowledgement of that evidence, and the court said the law is needed to prevent ballot crowding.
On December 13, Rocky De La Fuente filed a lawsuit in Minnesota State Supreme Court over ballot access into the Republican presidential primary. Currently the ballot will only list President Trump. The new presidential primary law gives the state party the sole discretion to choose names, and the lawsuit says this violates the State Constitution. See this story.
De La Fuente also has a federal lawsuit in Minnesota on this point, but it is not moving very fast. The state’s answer is due December 27.
Virginia requires 5,000 signatures for presidential primary candidates to get on a ballot. December 13 was the deadline. Fourteen candidates submitted petitions: Michael Bennet, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, Deval Patrick, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson, and Andrew Yang. Originally Castro was left off the list, but now he is on the list.
There is no Virginia Republican presidential primary.
