This summary in the Gotham Gazette, about the September 12 New York city primary results for Mayor and other city office, says the turnout was quite poor, and that Sal Albanese appears to have won the Reform Party primary.
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On September 13, Nebraska State Senator Bob Krist said he will run for Governor of Nebraska in 2018 on a “Unity ticket”, which seems to say he will form a new party called the Unity Party. See this story. However, his campaign says he hasn’t decided yet on which petition route he will use, new party or independent.
The new party petition route is 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, which is 4,880 signatures. The independent petition is well over 110,000 (10% of the number of registered voters in 2018), and is clearly unconstitutional.
The Eighth Circuit will hear Libertarian Party of Arkansas v Martin, 16-3794, on Wednesday, September 20. On September 12, the panel of judges assigned to the case sent a letter to both sides, asking them to be prepared to discuss whether the case is moot or not. That is because, after the Libertarian Party won the case in U.S. District Court, the legislature amended the law to substantially fix the problem that the Libertarians had complained about.
The issue in the original case was whether it is constitutional to force newly-qualifying parties to choose all their non-presidential nominees (in a convention) months before the major parties hold their primaries. After the state lost the case in U.S. District Court, the legislature liberalized the convention deadline, by moving it to primary day.
Even though the legislature removed the problem that had caused the lawsuit, the state continues to appeal the decision. No other state in the history of constitutional ballot access litigation had ever continued to appeal a lower court decision, after the legislature amended the law in the direction desired by the plaintiffs. Thus there is no precedent on ballot access mootness for this type of situation.
The Sacramento Bee has this op-ed by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, advocating that the California legislature pass SB 568, the bill that moves all partisan primaries from June to March, in all election years. The California legislature is only in session through Friday, September 15. So far the bill has passed both chambers, but they differ, so the Senate must vote again.
On September 12, a Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order against part of the New Hampshire voter registration law passed earlier this year. New Hampshire Democratic Party v Gardner, Hillsborough Superior Court, 2017-cv-432. The order is by Justice Charles Temple, a member of the State Supreme Court.
The law says persons who register within 30 days of an election, and who don’t have documents proving that they are domiciled in New Hampshire when they register, must return to the registration office within either 10 days or 30 days (depending on whether their town has full-time hours for voter registration, or not) with the proof. If they don’t return, they are subject to a possible $5,000 fine or even jail time. This part of the law is suspended, pending further court activity. Here is the 13-page decision. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.