Governor Janet Mills of Maine has worked out a plan to make it likely that Maine will use Ranked Choice Voting for president in November 2020, but not in the March 2020 presidential primaries. See this story. Thanks to Shawn Levasseur for the link.
Contrary to a post on this web page from yesterday, Delaware did file a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case over whether independents are able to be appointed to a state judicial petition. The name of the case is Governor of Delaware v James R. Adams, 19-309.
UPDATE: here is the cert petition.
Howard Schultz has formally dropped out of the presidential race. Although he had suspended his potential independent run several months ago, until now he had not said he won’t run. See this story.
The letter Schultz wrote says there is a danger that the Democratic nomination would not be decided until after independent presidential petitions are due. This is not true. There are only two states with an independent presidential nomination deadline earlier than June, Texas and North Carolina, and both are under court attack. The quote from the Schultz letter is below.
“Unfortunately, election rules in each state and the way this Democratic nomination process has unfolded pose another challenge: It has become more likely that the Democratic nominee will not be known before the deadlines to submit the required number of signatures for an independent to get on the ballot. If I went forward, there is a risk that my name would appear on ballots even if a moderate Democrat wins the nomination, and that is not a risk I am willing to take.”
Of course it is possible that the primaries might end with no clear determination as to who the Democratic nominee would be, but that would be extraordinary. The last primaries are June 2, 2020.
On September 5, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, an Obama appointee, upheld a restrictive practice of Indiana election officials when they validate signatures on petitions. She refused to grant injunctive relief to John Schmitz, an independent candidate for Mayor of Indianapolis in the November 2019 election. He would have had enough valid signatures if the instances at which the voter filled in his or her current address, instead of the address of registration, could have been counted. But she refused to order that those signatures be counted. Here is the 17-page opinion.
The judge said it does bother her that the government petition form says, “Residence Address”, instead of “Voter registration address.” But she said it can be presumed that Indiana voters have read the election code, and they know or ought to know that petitions require the voter registration address. She did not even mention the federal Voting Rights Act, which has language which other courts have used to recognize this type of petition signature. The case is Schmitz v Marion County Board of Elections, s.d., 1:19cv-3314.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo still hasn’t signed A8176, which sets the rules for the 2020 presidential primaries and puts them in April. According to this story, he may veto the bill. Then he would hope the legislature would pass a new bill, setting a February presidential primary.
