The Maine legislature defeated LD 508 on June 12. It is a proposed constitutional amendment that would let voters choose the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. LD 508 has come close to passing, and did pass the House on June 11, but it didn’t pass the Senate.
Maine is one of only six states in which the only statewide state office elected by the voters is Governor, or the team of Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The others are Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Tennessee.
On May 22, a New York State Supreme Court in Rockland County said that the lawsuit Smart Elections v Rockland County Board of Elections may proceed to a trial. The lawsuit alleges that the Rockland County official returns for the November 2024 election are incorrect. As evidence, the plaintiffs presented affidavits from voters who said that they had voted for U.S. Senate independent candidate Diane Sare. There are nine such affidavits in Assembly District 39, but the official returns show that Sare only received five votes. In Assembly District 62, there are five affidavits, but the official returns only show three votes. See this story.
On June 12, U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper, an Obama appointee, enjoined Presidential Donald Trump’s order that the federal voter registration form be altered to require applicants to attach proof of citizenship. State of California v Trump, 1:25cv-10810. The case had been filed by 17 states in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts. The judge also blocked the Trump order that says postal ballots must be received by election day.
A somewhat similar order had come down in April in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. That case is League of United Latin American Citizens v Executive Office of the President, 1:25cv-946.
On June 12, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo vetoed AB 597. It would have let independent voters vote in partisan primaries. Lombardo is a Republican, and the Republicans in the legislature had unanimously opposed the bill.
Here is the veto message. It says the voters rejected a top-five ballot initiative last year, and therefore the bill violates the will of voters. This is a stunning non sequitor. The bill and the initiative are very different. The Governor refers to both ideas as an “open primary”, but he is misusing accepted vocabulary.
On June 12, the Eleventh Circuit issued an opinion in Catoosa County Republican Party v Catoosa County Board of Elections, 24-12936. It says the Catoosa County Republican Party has standing to challenge the refusal of election officials to pay any attention to the party’s desires about who and what appears on its primary ballot. Neither the Georgia state courts, nor the U.S. District Court, had appeared to take the case seriously, but the Eleventh Circuit remanded it.
The county Republican Party wants to prevent certain individuals running for county office from appearing on its ballot, given that the party doesn’t think they are bona fide Republicans. Also the county party wants to put some ballot questions on its own primary ballot, but election officials had refused to let the party do that.
The opinion is unsigned, but the judges in the case are Robin S. Rosenbaum (an Obama appointee), Nancy Abudu (a Biden appointee), and Charles R. Wilson (a Clinton appointee).
