On June 23, the Washington, D.C., city council voted to fund the new law that says independent voters are free to vote in partisan primaries. The law passed in November 2024 as an initiative, but it had not been implemented for this year’s primary because the Council had not appropriated money to make the change. But now the change will go into effect, starting with the 2028 primary. See this story.
Lynchburg, Virginia has partisan elections for city council. This year the Republican Party used a “firehouse primary” (meaning a party meeting) to choose its nominees for city council, but the state Republican Party ruled that the city party’s process was legally flawed. So the Republicans who wanted to continue to run were forced to file as independent candidates. See this story.
On June 11, New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan rejected the Declaration of Candidacy of Aaron Day, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate. The reason was that Day had moved within New Hampshire, and his new voter registration, reflecting his new home, had not been processed on the day Day filed his Statement of Candidacy. Day has now filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the state cannot even force congressional candidates to be registered voters at all, because that adds to the Constitutional qualifications. Day v New Hampshire Secretary of State, 1:26cv-499.
Here is the Complaint. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Landya B. McCafferty, an Obama appointee.
On May 2026, as previously reported, John Morgan, a wealthy attorney in Orlando, Florida, announced his plans to create a new party. He also said he would award $100,000 to the individual who suggested the best new party name.
The contest closed on June 14, but the winning entry still has not been announced. Morgan had earlier said the announcement would come on June 17. Here is the website for the contest, giving the rules.
On June 23, California filed this brief in Peace & Freedom Party v Weber, n.d., 3:24cv-8308. This is the California minor party lawsuit against the top-two system.
The law is discriminatory because some candidates in the primary are permitted to list their party on the ballot, but other candidates are not. In defense, the state says, “The State’s interests in permitting candidates to identify on the ballots only political parties that have qualified to participate in an election include ensuring that candidates aooear on the ballot in an orderly manner, preventing misrepresentation, avoiding electoral confusion and deception, preserving the simplicity of the ballots, and assuring the efficiency, integrity, and fairness of the ballots.”
In this month’s primary, candidates who are registered in the American Solidarity, Constitution, Forward, Socialist Workers, and Working Class Parties all ran for partisan office. It is mind-boggling that the state can argue that if these candidates had their party of membership printed on the ballot, that would “cause confusion.”
Washington state, the other top-two state, lets candidates in partisan elections choose any label they wish, as long as it is not too long and is not obscene.
