The Eighth Circuit will hear Libertarian Party of Arkansas v Martin, 16-3794, on Wednesday, September 20, at 9 a.m., in St. Louis.  The Libertarian Party had won in the U.S. District Court, and the state is appealing.

The issue is the former law that said newly-qualifying parties (which nominate by convention) must choose all their non-presidential nominees in the year before the election, months before the major parties hold primaries to choose their nominees.

This government appeal is unprecedented.  The Arkansas legislature already changed the law to conform to the U.S. District Court ruling, and the problem no longer exists.  But the state still hopes to persuade the Eighth Circuit that the U.S. District Court decision was wrong.  In 49 years of ballot access litigation in federal courts, there has never before been any state which kept appealing the decision even after that state’s legislature corrected the law that had been held unconstitutional.

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.