North Carolina will hold an election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 9th district, in the next few months. But as of February 26, there is no information for potential candidates on the web page of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
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Arkansas SB 276 was on the agenda for Tuesday, February 26, in the Senate State Agencies & Government Affairs Committee. For the fourth time in a row, though, the sponsor, Senator Trent Garner, did not bring it up. The bill is important for ballot access. The bill as presently written would move the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties from January of the election year to November of the year before the election. Both deadlines are unconstitutional, based on precedents from Arkansas federal courts in 1977 and 1996. It will be interesting to see what happens to the bill when it finally begins to move ahead.
The Utah election code says that a presidential primary will be held in 2020, but it doesn’t yet specify a date. Utah used caucuses in 2016. State Senator Curtis Bramble says he is about to introduce a bill to set the date in the first week of March. Thanks to FrontloadingHQ for this news.
On February 19, attorneys for Alabama government filed this brief in Libertarian Party of Alabama v Merrill, m.d., 2:19cv-69. This is the case in which the Libertarian Party challenges the state policy of giving a free list of the registered voters to the qualified parties, but no other parties.
The case is based on a 1970 cased from New York, Socialist Workers Party v Rockefeller, which was summarily affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. That case, filed by the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Labor Party, said it is unconstitutional for a state to refuse to give a list of the registered voters to groups that are petitioning to get on the ballot, if the same state gives a free list to the parties that are already on the ballot.
When the Socialist Workers and Socialist Labor Parties filed this case in early 1970 against New York, they had not already petitioned for a place on the ballot. At the time New York only permitted petitioning in six weeks in late August, September and early October of the election year. The Socialist Workers and Socialist Labor Parties won the case in June 1970, before they were even permitted to begin petitioning. Because they obtained the list in time for their 1970 petition drives, the list was used by their petitioners.
But the attorneys for the Alabama misread the case, and believe the court only ordered relief for parties that had already finished their petition drive.
The Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Labor Party had petitioned in New York city for Mayor in 1969, and their petitions failed. When they filed the case, they had last been able to get on the ballot in 1968.
The Illinois bill to reduce the number of signatures for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties, which had already been introduced in the Senate, is now also introduced in the House. The House bill is HB 3535, introduced by Representative Anne Stava-Murray (D-Naperville). Like SB 141, it lowers the number of general election signatures so that they match the number required for the same office in the primary.
The primary petition requirements differ for each party that has a primary, so the bill makes the general election requirement the same as for the party that has the higher primary requirement.