Independent candidate Craig O’Dear has submitted 22,000 signatures to be on the Missouri ballot as an independent for U.S. Senate. The law requires 10,000. Assuming his petition is valid, he will be the first independent on the Missouri ballot for U.S. Senate since 1976.
Here is his web page. He is one of the candidates endorsed by the Centrist Project, which is now called Unite America. Thanks to Ken Bush for this news.
On July 27, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed SB 3. This is the bill that says that even though judicial candidates have their party label on the ballot in November (even though there are no primaries and no party nominees), no one can have a label if he or she switched parties in the three months before the filing deadline.
Here is the veto message. It is expected that the legislature will override his veto. The Republican majority in the legislature passed this bill because without it, there will be two candidates labeled “Republican” on the November 2018 ballot for one State Supreme Court race, and only one with the label “Democrat”.
Ohio election law forces the Green Party to nominate by primary. Jim Condit, Jr., has again won an Ohio Green Party nomination for U.S. House, even though his views are not in alignment with the views of the Green Party. He is the nominee this year for U.S. House, 2nd district. He was also the Green Party nominee in the Ohio 8th district in a special election in June 2016.
He was the Constitution Party nominee in the Ohio 8th district in 2010 and 2014, but the Constitution Party hasn’t been on the Ohio ballot as a party since 2014, so now he runs in the Green Party primary. See this story.
David Brooks of the New York Times writes that an independent presidential candidate, or the candidate of a new party, ought to run for president in 2020 on a platform of decreasing the power of the federal government and boosting the power of state and especially regional government. Thanks to Jim Hedges for the link.
On July 30, the Massachusetts legislature passed the bill for automatic voter registration, which is now HB 4834. Automatic voter registration helps groups and candidates that must petition to be on the ballot. It means that petition validity improves.
