On March 16, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper appointed eight members to the State Board of Elections. See this press release from the Governor’s office. The ninth member, who must be someone who is neither a Democrat or a Republican, can’t be appointed until the new board members meet and propose someone.
Now that the Board has members again, it should be possible for the Green Party to be recognized as a qualified party.
According to this story, the Republican Party of Jefferson County, West Virginia, seems to feel that it might be illegal for anyone running in a Republican primary to communicate with Democratic voters, asking them to switch their registration from Democratic to independent so as to be able to choose a Republican primary ballot and vote for the candidate who asked them to switch. Independents can vote in major party primaries in West Virginia.
The Republican candidate who did this has a primary opponent, and the opponent is on the Republican Party County Committee.
The Huffington Post has this interesting interview with Drew Miller, the Libertarian nominee for U.S. House, 18th district, in the special election of March 13. The main point is that none of the mainstream media, neither print nor television, would ever acknowledge that he was on the ballot, until election night. Only then, when it became apparent that he held the balance of power in the race, did CNN add his name to the televised election returns.
UPDATE: also see this story about Miller in The Pitt News, the student newspaper at the University of Pittsburgh. This article reveals that Miller has been deluged with hate e-mail from supporters of the Republican nominee.
Unite America, formerly the Centrist Project, has released this short video that showcases its endorsed candidates for Governor and U.S. Senate, all of whom are running in 2018 as independent candidates.
California elects an Insurance Commissioner in a partisan election. Only six candidates are on the June ballot: three Democrats, one Republican, one Peace & Freedom Party member, and one independent candidate. UPDATE: the Republican, Peter Kuo, failed to qualify, so there are only five candidates.
The Peace & Freedom Party member is Nathalie Hrizi. The three Democrats are Asif Mahmood, State Senator Ricardo Lara, and Paul Song. The independent is Steve Poizner, who held the position 2006-2010, when he was a Republican.
It is very likely that Hrizi will poll over 2% of the June vote. If she does, that will keep the Peace & Freedom Party on the ballot for four years, even if the party’s registration dips below .33% of the state total. At the last registration tally, as of January 2018, PFP was .40%.
