On August 17, two Libertarian Party candidates for local partisan office in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, won decisions in state court that they should remain on the ballot.

Jennifer Moore, running for Auditor of Upper Providence Township, was originally told that she needed ten signatures, but the elections office made a mistake, and the law requires that she submit forty-six.  Judge Emanuel A. Bertin of the Court of Common Pleas said because she was misinformed by the county elections office, she may have additional time to get the extra signatures.  Her petition is now due September 8.  That case was Vagnozzi v Lambrugo and Moore, 2017-20079.

Marc Bozzacco, running for Abington Township Commissioner, like all candidates for local office, was required to file his Statement of Financial Interests with both the county elections office and the clerk of Abington Township.  Although he filed in both places, his filing with the township office was late.  But Judge Bertin put him on the ballot anyway, because the individual who challenged his candidacy had not written his challenge to show what Bozzacco had done wrong.  That case was Kalinoski v Lambrugo and Bozzacco, 2017-20026.  Thanks to Richard Schwarz for the news.

A group of Utah citizens will try to qualify an initiative for the 2018 ballots that abolishes the caucus system for a candidate to get on a primary ballot.  Instead the only way for candidates to get on a primary ballot will be by petition.  See this story.

On August 16, New York Supreme Court Justice Lawrence H. Ecker issued a 16-page ruling in Swiller v Lecuona, 2320/17.  He said that petition signatures in which the signer only wrote “W.P.” instead of “White Plains” for city are valid.  He wrote “An individual who is otherwise lawfully entitled to sign a petition in support of his/her candidate of choice should not be automatically eliminated because he or she used an obvious, common sense, unequivocal manner in which he or she demonstrated residence in White Plains.”  See page eleven.

The decision deals with other parts of the challenge to the petition.  The petitions had been filed by some candidates running in the Democratic primary for Mayor and City Council in White Plains.