On September 17, oral argument was held in a U.S. District Court in Schmitt v Husted. This is the Ohio case over whether the First Amendment allows Ohio to let county election boards reject initiatives, based on their content. The plaintiffs filed the case after Portage County Board of Elections rejected some local initiatives, even though they had enough signatures. Plaintiffs argue that only courts can decide whether to reject an initiatve based on its content. The judge said he would rule by September 19.

The New York Republican Party has decided that it won’t replace Congressman Chris Collins with some other nominee, and Collins has decided to run for re-election. See this story. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

The September 15, 2018 registration tally for North Carolina is: Democratic 38.02%; Republican 29.85%; Libertarian .52%; Green .01%; Constitution .01%; independent and miscellaneous 31.59%. Here is a link to the State Board of Elections page that shows the numbers. Green and Constitution registration is quite low because until a few months ago, it was not possible for voters to register into those parties and have those registrations tallied.

In February 2018, the percentages were: Democratic 38.65%; Republican 30.17%; Libertarian .50%; independent and miscellaneous 30.68%.

The State Board of Elections has no registration data earlier than 1966. Republicans had always been more numerous than registered independents (in the years for which data exists), until September 2017, when independents started outnumbering Republicans. Back in 1972, North Carolina had 541,916 Republicans but only 79,129 independents.