Virginia Delegate Nick Freitas has said he will run for re-election as a write-in candidate in the November 2019 election. He was left off the ballot because he filed his declaration of candidacy with the wrong office. He is a Republican and his district is heavily Republican. The only name on the ballot will be the Democratic nominee, Ann Ridgeway.
The last time anyone was elected as a write-in to the Virginia legislature in a general election was in 1989. Thanks to Daniel Sachs for this news.
The Los Angeles Times has this op-ed by Law Professors Robert Delahunty and John Yoo. It says that California’s new law on presidential primary ballot access and tax returns violates freedom of association for political parties, because it interferes with the Republican Party’s choice of whom to nominate for president.
UPDATE: Dan Schnur makes the same point in this commentary. Schnur was an independent candidate for Secretary of State of California in 2014. Even though he had held many important appointive posts in California government, he only placed fourth in the top-two primary and did not qualify for the general election.
Louisiana elects all its state legislators, and all its statewide state officers, in October 2019. On August 8, the Secretary of State posted a list of candidates for that election. See here, and choose “View Qualified Candidates.”
The Independent Party and the Libertarian Party are the only minor parties with any candidates. The Independent Party is running Gary Landrieu for Governor. It also has one candidate for the State Senate, and seven for State House.
The Libertarian Party has two State Senate candidates and four State House candidates.
In Louisiana, actual independent candidates (for office other than President) appear on the ballot with this label: “No party.” One actual independent legislator, Joseph A. Marino III of Gretna, is running for re-election in the 85th district and he has no opponents, so he will be re-elected. Louisiana does not permit write-in votes.
On August 8, the Arkansas Secretary of State asked the Eighth Circuit to remove the Libertarian Party from the ballot, or to at least expedite the state’s appeal. Here is the brief.
The state’s brief is fairly lengthy, but it never mentions that the Arkansas 3% petition requirement, the subject of the case, was held unconstitutional twice in the past, once in 1996 in a Reform Party case, and again in 2006 in a Green Party case. In the 1996 Reform Party case, the state appealed its loss to the Eighth Circuit, but then shortly before the oral argument, asked to withdraw its appeal. The Eighth Circuit then agreed to let the state withdraw only if it acknowledged that the Eighth Circuit was affirming the U.S. District Court decision.
The state’s new brief lays great emphasis on a past decision of the Eighth Circuit that upheld a North Dakota law. But the North Dakota law at issue did not prevent the North Dakota Libertarian Party from being a qualified party. The North Dakota case involved how many primary votes a minor party needed to poll in its own primary, for state legislative candidates.
The state’s new brief also points out that the Eleventh Circuit had upheld Alabama’s 3% petition requirement in 2007. But when that case was decided, the petition deadline was in June of the election year, and Alabama allowed an unlimited amount of time to gather the signatures. Also the Libertarian Party has fulfilled the 3% requirement in Alabama in 2000. By contrast, no group ever successfully met the Arkansas 3% petition, which was in effect 1977-2006.
SB 696 is pending in the California legislature. It would make it illegal for any political party to have “Independent” or “Independence” in its name. It has already passed the Assembly Elections Committee, and has a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on August 14 at 9 a.m. Although it had already passed the State Senate, back then the same bill had was on another subject; the original contents had since been deleted and replaced with the party name provision.
The American Independent Party, which has been ballot-qualified since 1968, has decided to sue if this bill is signed into law.
