Final Brief Filed in U.S. District Court in Illinois Ballot Access Case

Posted on by October 26, 2018
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On October 26, the Illinois State Board of Elections filed this reply brief in Gill v Scholz, c.d., 3:16cv-3221. This is the case that challenges the Illinois 5% petition for independent candidates for U.S. House. All the briefs are now in.

Although the state relies on precedent, the state doesn’t mention the teaching of the U.S. Supreme Court in Storer v Brown, and Mandel v Bradley, that courts could consider how often a law is used, and if it is used very seldom, it is probably unconstitutional.

Political Data Firm Issues Wacky Prediction for Maine U.S. Senate Race

Posted on by October 26, 2018
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The political data research firm SEMrush set out to predict the winners of all U.S. Senate races this year, based on their research on Google searches for each candidate’s name. But they only bothered to do this research for Democratic and Republican nominees. In Maine this year, independent incumbent Angus King is expected to be re-elected, but because SEMrush didn’t check how many people googled his name, they made a prediction that Republican Eric Brakey will win. See this story in the Bangor Daily News. Thanks to Shawn Levasseur for the link.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Cast a Write-in Vote for President in November 2016

Posted on by October 26, 2018
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On October 24, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke at the University of Southern California. He said he cast a write-in vote for president in November 2016, for Ohio Governor John Kasich.

This is very ironic, because Schwarzenegger is responsible for removing write-in space in California general elections for Congress and partisan state office, and attorneys associated with him vigorously intervened in court to defend that write-in ban.

See the Politico California Playbook for October 26 at this link. Scroll down to the middle for the Scharzenegger story, which is titled, “Playbook Excloo: Our Talk with Arnold.”

New York Files Brief in Second Circuit in Defense of Ban on Out-of-State Circulators

Posted on by October 26, 2018
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On October 26, the New York State Board of Elections filed this brief in the Second Circuit in Redpath v Spano, 18-2089. The case was formerly called Merced v Spano. The issue is the state’s ban on out-of-state circulators.

The state tries to argue that anyone can be a circulator, and that the law only bans out-of-state “witnesses.” In other words, the state expects every out-of-state circulator to be accompanied at all times by a New York state resident. Then the state argues that the free speech of circulators is not an issue in the case, and that witnesses have no free speech complaint because it is the other person in the team who can be expected to do all the talking.