The Arkansas Secretary of State has validated the Constitution Party’s petition for presidential ballot status. The Arkansas petition for a party to be on for president only requires 1,000 signatures. Such petitions need not carry the names of the party’s eventual nominees.
The North Dakota Libertarian Party went off the ballot in November 2018 for failing to poll 5% for either Secretary of State or Attorney General. In order to get back on, it needs 7,000 valid signatures. The party is circulating that petition and is approximately half-finished.
The Mississippi Constitution says all elections for statewide state office require the winner to win a majority of the popular vote, and also to carry a majority of state house districts. If no candidate does that, then the state legislature chooses the office-holder.
On May 30, several African-American voters filed a federal lawsuit against that system. McLemore v Hosemann, s.d., 3:19cv-383. The state has filed a motion to dismiss, which is pending. Thanks to Election Law Blog for this news.
This Texas Tribune article details the growing movement in Texas to end partisan election of judges.
Minor parties in Texas frequently retain their qualified status by polling enough votes for one of the statewide partisan judicial races. There are always several such races on the ballot, every two years, and typically Democrats don’t fill their entire statewide judicial ticket, making it easy for a minor party to meet the vote test.
Some proponents of a local city charter initiative in Tacoma, Washington, have filed a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, on whether the First Amendment protects initiatives from being removed from the ballot before the voters can vote. Of course, this only refers to initiatives that have enough valid signatures. Save Tacoma Water v Port of Tacoma, 18-1518. The Washington state courts had removed the initiative from the ballot on the grounds that, if passed, the initiative would have been unconstitutional.
The initiative concerned whether the city should be required to hold a popular vote before issuing permits for new industries to use an exceptionally large amount of water from the city water system. Here is the cert petition. The cert petition says there is a Circuit split on the issue. The cert petition says that it would be unthinkable for a court to tell a legislative body that it couldn’t vote on a proposed bill, just because the bill might later be held unconstitutional. By analogy, then, the petition says initiatives should be entitled to the same treatment.
