New Jersey did not have a Lieutenant Governor until 2009, when the law was changed to create the office, and also to provide that candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor run as a team in the general election.

However, unlike other states that require candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor to run as a team in November, New Jersey does not require gubernatorial candidates to have a running mate. In the November 2017 election, two of the seven gubernatorial candidates did not have a Lieutenant Governor partner, but the state still allowed these gubernatorial candidates to be on the November ballot. The two gubernatorial candidates without a running mate were the Constitution Party nominee, Matthew Riccardi; and independent candidate Gina Genovese, whose ballot label was “Reduce Property Taxes.” Genovese had intended Derel Stroud to be her running mate, but he did not file the needed petition.

On December 7, the Florida prison authorities rescinded their ban on letting prisoners receive nine particular issues of The Militant, the weekly print newspaper published by the Socialist Workers Party. See this article.

On December 12, the North Carolina Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that it was unconstitutional for the state legislature to eliminate partisan primaries for judicial races. North Carolina Democratic Party v Berger, m.d., 1:17cv-1113.

In October 2017, the legislature passed SB 656, which eliminated primaries only in 2018 for judicial elections. Judicial elections in North Carolina are partisan elections. But the bill provides that every individual running for a judicial post will appear on the November ballot, with party labels, but there will not be party nominees. The Complaint alleges that this violates freedom of association for political parties.

The reason the Republican majority in the legislature eliminated primaries for 2018 for judicial office is that the legislature expects to consider redrawing the boundaries of various judicial districts in time for the 2018 election. But because the primary is in May, and filing begins in February, the legislature didn’t expect to have the new districts ready in time for the primary.

The case is assigned to Judge N. Carlton Tilley, a Reagan appointee. Thanks to Brian Irving for this news. UPDATE: here is the Democratic Party’s brief. A weakness in the brief is that it doesn’t discuss either New York State Board of Elections v Lopez-Torres, nor Washington State Grange v Washington State Republican Party. The former decision upheld a New York law that did not permit judicial candidates to directly petition for a place on the primary ballot. The latter one said that Washington state did not necessarily violate a party’s freedom of association by permitting party labels on the ballot even though there were no party nominees.