On June 21, Rocky De La Fuente filed this short supplemental brief in the Third Circuit, explain why his ballot access case is not moot. The case involves the law that does not permit primary petitioners to work, unless they are registered into the same party as the candidate. The state had said it would no longer enforce the law, so the Third Circuit wanted briefs on whether or not the case is moot.
The Texas Tribune here has a story mentioning that well-known independent U.S. Senate candidate Jonathan Jenkins didn’t submit signatures on the deadline, June 21.
Earlier this year, the Democratic Party filed a lawsuit against the Florida law that says the nominees of the party that won the last gubernatorial election should be listed first on the general election ballot. The case is Jacobson v Detzner, n.d., 4:18cv-262.
The Republican Governors Association and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have asked to intervene in the case. It seems odd that these bodies don’t trust Ken Detzner, the Secretary of State, to adequately defend his own state’s law, especially as he is a Republican.
Ohio held its primary on May 8. On June 21, the Secretary of State released data on how many voters chose each party’s primary ballot. The three parties that had primaries are the Republican, Democratic, and Green Parties. This data is important, because there is no question on the Ohio voter registration form asking the applicant to choose a party (or to choose independent status). Instead, the only party membership data in Ohio is the number of voters who choose each party’s primary ballot.
Here is the Secretary of State’s report. It shows that the Green Party now is considered to have 7,353 members. Before the primary, the state considered the party to have 4,200 members.
The Ohio Libertarian Party expects to be on the ballot in November, and will submit its party petition on July 2. Then it will nominate by convention. Each of its nominees then must submit his or her own petition at that point, consisting of 50 names for statewide office, and 5 for district office. But because it didn’t have a primary, the state considers the party not to have any members.
Geoffrey Skelley, media relations person for the University of Virginia Center for Politics, has this article listing past U.S. Senate candidates who ran in the general election even after losing a U.S. Senate primary the same year. The article begins as a report on Don Blankenship of West Virginia, who lost the May 2018 Republican primary but who is petitioning to be the Constitution Party nominee. That first portion of the article has little news that hasn’t already been reported. But the latter half of the article has the history of other candidates, and that half of the article is quite valuable as a reference.
