The daily newspaper of Little Rock, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has this article about the recent ruling striking down the March petition deadline for independent candidate petitions in Arkansas.
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On January 26, Pennsylvania asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, involving U.S. House district boundaries. On January 22 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had invalidated the state’s U.S. House district boundaries for violating the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court also ordered new districts in time for the 2018 election. The state wants the U.S. Supreme Court to stay that. Here is the state’s filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, Turzai v League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, 17A795.
Two New Mexico State Senators, a Democrat and a Republican, have introduced SB 178. It would eliminate primaries for Lieutenant Governor. Instead, parties entitled to a primary could either have a bylaw saying the gubernatorial nominee could choose a Lieutenant Governor running mate, or else let parties choose someone by convention. See this story.
On January 26, both sides filed briefs in the case over whether North Carolina violated the U.S. Constitution when it abolished primaries for judicial races, which are partisan races. The Democratic Party’s five-page brief, responds to the judge’s request for a brief on how the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision Washington State Grange v Washington State Republican Party bears on the current North Carolina case. The current North Carolina case is over the legislature’s eliminating partisan primaries for judicial office. The Democratic Party wants its primary back.
On the same day, the state also filed a five-page brief on that point. Both briefs have problems. If the Democratic Party brief were to be believed, then the Louisiana election system would be unconstitutional, yet no one has ever tried to invalidate the current Louisiana system, in which there are no primaries. The state’s brief is somewhat misleading because it does not mention that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t decide whether a party’s associational rights are violated when party labels appear on the ballot but parties don’t have nominees. Instead, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case back to the lower courts for more fact-finding.
According to this story, the New York state legislature is likely to pass a bill this year to create early voting (also called no-excuse absentee voting).