A U.S. District Court in Georgia is currently hearing a case over whether Georgia must give up its existing vote-counting machines, which do not leave a paper trail. Both sides had been asked to submit supplemental briefs on whether it would be feasible for new machines to be used in the November 2018 election.
Here is the brief of Fulton County election officials, who argue that it isn’t possible to switch in time for this year’s election.
The plaintiffs will respond by August 20.
On August 7, the Third Circuit upheld the Pennsylvania government’s position that presidential candidates who run in presidential primaries cannot then appear on the general election ballot as an independent candidate. De La Fuente v Cortes, 17-3778. The eleven-page opinion is marked “Not precedential” and will not be reported.
In 2016, Rocky De La Fuente appeared on the ballot in Pennsylvania’s Democratic presidential primary, and he also petitioned to be on the November ballot as an independent. Even though no one challenged his independent petition, the state elections office on its own motion disqualified him, because he had run in the presidential primary.
There had never been a precedent in Pennsylvania on this point. Although John Anderson ran in twenty Republican presidential primaries in 1980, and then appeared as an independent on the ballot in all states, he didn’t appear on the ballot in the Republican presidential primary ballot in Pennsylvania (although his write-ins in that primary were counted and the results published).
The Third Circuit decision is extremely brief. It simply says that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld “sore loser” laws in Storer v Brown in 1974. It didn’t acknowledge that Storer did not deal with a presidential candidate. The Third Circuit decision did not mention any of the reasons why “sore loser” laws shouldn’t be interpreted as applying to presidential primaries. Those reasons are: (1) the true candidates in November are presidential elector candidates, not the candidate himself; (2) no one ever loses a party presidential nomination in any one presidential primary.
The decision also upholds the Pennsylvania law that won’t let an out-of-state resident circulate a primary petition, on the theory that freedom of association means that if the Democratic and Republican Parties (the only parties that ever have primaries in Pennsylvania) don’t want out-of-state circulators, they can prohibit them. The record in this case tried to show that the Democratic and Republican Parties actually have no policy on this matter, and did not intervene in the case, but that evidence didn’t get into the record.
The panel did not permit any oral argument. The decision is by Judge Marjorie Rendell, a Clinton appointee; and is signed by Judge Patty Shwartz, an Obama appointee, and Richard Nygaard, a Reagan appointee.
Wisconsin held primaries on August 14 for the Libertarian, Green, and Constitution Parties. However, the Wisconsin state elections office does not compile unofficial returns and disseminate them on its web page. The news media gather the returns for the Democratic and Republican Parties on election night, but they don’t do that for the minor party primaries, so we must wait until the state has its official returns to see any minor party primary results.
Vermont held a primary on August 14 for the Progressive Party, and the Vermont Secretary of State does post unofficial returns. However, all of the statewide candidates in the Progressive Party were write-in candidates in the party’s primary, and the write-ins haven’t been tallied yet.
At its state convention on August 6, the Idaho Constitution Party voted to separate itself from the national Constitution Party. See this story.
On August 14, Republican leaders of the North Carolina legislature filed an appeal to the North Carolina State Court of Appeals, in the cases over whether judicial candidates who change parties within three months of filing for office may have their party label on the ballot.
