On April 19, the supporters of Bernie Sanders who are suing the Democratic National Committee filed their reply brief in the Eleventh Circuit in Wilding v Democratic National Committee, 17-14194. The brief says, “To wit, Defendants want this Court to construe the First Amendment so broadly as to immunize a political party and its leadership from any legal liability arising from the making of false representations in connection with the receipt of money – or what the common law regards as fraud.”

The brief also says “Plaintiffs and the proposed Class members collectively paid millions of dollars in campaign donations based on a false belief that was perpetuated by the DNC and its former chairwoman through a series of false statements and ommissions: namely that the DNC was running (as it was obliged to do under its own Charter) a presidential primary process that was fair and evenhanded between the candidates and had not determined that one of the candidates, Hillary Clinton, would be the nominee even before the race started.”

The Minnesota legislature ends its 2018 session in a month. The bills to prevent local jurisdictions from using ranked-choice voting for their own elections seem unlikely to pass. SF 3325 had passed the Senate Government Finance & Elections Committee on March 14, but has made no further headway and is now in another Senate Committee. HF 3690, the identical bill in the House, never made any progress.

The bill to move the primary from August to June passed the House Government Operations & Elections Committee on March 1, but it hasn’t made any progress since then either. It would have the indirect effect of moving the petition deadline for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties from June to April. Also it would have moved the deadline for the new party petition from May to March.

Although the North Carolina legislature in 2017 made some huge improvements to ballot access for newly-qualifying parties, the ballot access laws relating to independent candidate are still faulty. Last year, a lawsuit was filed in federal court against some of those laws. Leifert v Strach, m.d., 1:17cv-147.

On April 20, a status conference was held. By April 27, both sides must jointly file a report setting out which issues in the case still need to be adjudicated.

The most glaring faults in the North Carolina law for independent candidates are: (1) the petition deadline for independent candidates, including presidential independent candidates, was moved from June to April early in 2017; (2) the number of signatures for a statewide independent is far in excess of the number needed for a new party.

Precedents from North Carolina federal court decisions already make it clear that both characteristics are unconstitutional. In DeLaney v Bartlett, in 2004, a U.S. District Court said that North Carolina could not require more signatures for a statewide independent than for an entire new party. And in Greaves v North Carolina State Board of Elections, in 1980, a U.S. District Court said that April is too early for independent candidate petition deadlines.