Actress Diane Neal says she will run for U.S. House in New York’s 19th district as an independent candidate. See this story. The story appears to say she will petition as an independent candidate, instead of seeking the nomination of one of New York’s eight qualified parties. If she only appears on the ballot as an independent, New York’s confusing ballot format will injure her campaign. That format will put her name on a far corner of the ballot, so that most voters probably won’t even see her name.

She could probably easily obtain the nomination of the ballot-qualified Reform Party. In 2016 another independent candidate for U.S. House in New York, Martin Babinec, got the Reform Party nomination, and he polled 24,595 votes on the Reform line. He also petitioned as an independent and got an additional 10,043 votes on his independent line. Thanks to Austin Cassidy for the link.

This newspaper story from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, describes the second day of the trial in Libertarian Party of South Dakota v Krebs, the U.S. District Court lawsuit over minor party ballot access in South Dakota.

The story has a slight factual error toward the end. The petitions for members of qualified minor parties to get themselves on the primary ballot is due March 29, not May 29.

Here is a story (published a day earlier) in the same newspaper, the Argus Leader, describing the first day of the trial.

On February 6, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order in North Carolina v Covington, 17A790. The lower 3-judge U.S. District Court had determined that some of the legislative district boundaries represent an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The 3-judge court had hired an expert to draw new boundaries. The state asked the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a stay of the lower court ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court response allows some of the newly drawn legislative districts to be implemented this year, but in certain other districts, the boundaries drawn by the legislature will be used in 2018. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.