On May 19, the Oregon Independent Party announced that it will let independent voters participate in its primary in 2018, just as it did in 2016. The Democratic and Republican Parties of Oregon do not permit independents to vote in their primaries. Oregon’s other ballot-qualified parties are not entitled to their own primary, and nominate by convention. The Independent Party qualifies for a primary because it continues to have registration above 5% of the state total.
On September 18, Rocky De La Fuente asked U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones to reconsider his August 21, 2017 ruling that upheld the Pennsylvania ban on out-of-state circulators in presidential primaries. De La Fuente v Cortes, m.d. 1:16cv-1696.
Judge Jones said the Pennsylvania Democratic and Republican Parties have a freedom of association right to bar circulators from outside Pennsylvania from circulating primary petitions. That part of his decision was very short and casual, and was included in his opinion that also applied the sore loser law to presidential primaries.
De La Fuente argues that because another U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania in 2015 struck down the out-of-state circulator ban for general election petitions, if the Jones opinion stands, the major parties and their candidates are being discriminated against, because they can’t use out-of-state circulators. He also argues that there is no evidence that the major parties object to letting out-of-state circulators work on primary petitions. Finally, he stresses that the particular plaintiff in this case is registered Republican; it’s just that he is a member of the Republican Party in another state. He asks the court to reopen the case and allow discovery so that he can show that the major parties don’t object. He also writes, “The person holding the clipboard with a nominating petition attached is not part of the selection process of major political party nominees.”
On September 15, Level the Playing Field filed this motion for summary judgment in Level the Playing Field v Federal Election Commission, the presidential debates case pending in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Martin v Moore, 17-156, at its conference of Friday, October 6. This is the case in which Arkansas is trying to persuade the Court to hear its appeal. The Eighth Circuit had ruled that unless the state can demonstrate that it needs a March petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidate to have enough time to check the signatures, then the March petition deadline is unconstitutional. The Eighth Circuit had then sent the case back to the U.S. District Court to give the state a chance to prove its contention. But attorneys for the state were not happy with that outcome, and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to countermand it.
New Zealand has a national election on Saturday, September 23; and Germany has one Sunday, September 24. Both countries have multi-party systems and both use proportional representation. New Zealand’s election is tough to predict, but in Germany, Angela Merkel is expected to win a fourth term.
