On July 16, former Congressman Ron Paul endorsed Murray Sabrin for U.S. Senate in New Jersey this year. Sabrin is the Libertarian Party nominee. See this story.
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On July 12, the Oklahoma State Board of Elections conducted its customary drawing to determine the order of parties on the November ballot. The Libertarian Party ended up with the top spot; Republicans are next; Democrats are third. Thanks to Chris Powell for this news.
The reason Oklahoma has a lottery for ballot position is that the Republican Party won a lawsuit against the old law back in the 1990’s. The old law said specifically that Democrats should always have the top line. Back then Oklahoma had a majority of Democrats in state government.
On Tuesday, July 10, attorney David Boies argued in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in a case charging that the winner-take-all system for choosing presidential electors violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Ridriguez v Brown, c.d., 2:18cv-1422. Boies is famous for having represented Al Gore in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 in Bush v Gore.
Here is a four-minute you tube by a witness to the recent oral argument in Los Angeles. The judge is Consuelo Marshall, a Carter appointee. She was hearing the California government motion to dismiss the case. Apparently, during the argument, she said very little to indicate what her attitude is toward the case.
There are similar cases pending in Texas, Massachusetts, and South Carolina, but none of them have had oral arguments yet.
The New Mexico Libertarian Party held a primary on June 5. It had no gubernatorial candidate whose name was printed on the ballot, but it had a write-in gubernatorial candidate, Bob Walsh. Write-in candidates in primaries need as many write-ins as the number of signatures that would have been needed to put that same candidate on the primary ballot. For 2018 statewide Libertarians, the requirement was 230 write-ins. The original count showed Walsh with 175 write-ins.
He requested a recount in eight counties, but the results only gained him eleven votes, so he is still short and his name won’t be on the November ballot. However, some news stories erroneously have said that therefore the party will lose its status as a major party. Actually section 1-7-7 says, “‘Major political party’ means any qualified political party, any of whose candidates received as many as 5% of the total number of votes cast at the last preceding election for the office of Governor or president, as the case may be, and whose membership totals not less than one-third of 1% of the statewide registered voter file.”
UPDATE: see this thorough article in New Mexico Politics, which does a good job of explaining the controversy over the vote test.
The Constitution Party hopes to place a nominee on the Pennsylvania ballot this year for Governor. The party needs 5,000 signatures by August 1. If the drive succeeds, it will be the first time since 1998 that the party has been on statewide in Pennsylvania in a midterm year. In 1998, it received 10.44% of the vote for Governor for its nominee Peg Luksik.