A U.S. District Court in New York will hear Merced v Spano, e.d. 1:16cv-3054, on December 13, 2017. This is the case that challenges New York state’s ban on out-of-state circulators. It is a Libertarian Party case, filed in 2016.
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The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles had been set to hear De La Fuente v Padilla, 2:16cv-3242, on August 21. However that hearing has been postponed until September 11. The issue is the California law that requires independent presidential candidates to submit almost 200,000 valid signatures in order to be on the ballot.
The Seventh Circuit will hear Tripp v Smart, 16-3469, on Monday, September 18, at 9:30 a.m. This is the Green Party case that challenges the 5% petition requirement for independent candidates for the legislature, and also for the legislative nominees of unqualified parties. Specifically the case challenges how the 5% petition works in districts that have no population centers. It also challenges the requirement that every petition sheet be notarized. The U.S. District Court had upheld all these requirements.
Pennsylvania holds statewide partisan elections for judicial offices on November 7, 2017. Voters will be asked to vote for four candidates for Superior Court, which is a statewide office. The Green Party petitioned for Jules Mermelstein for that office, and submitted 4,300 signatures. The requirement for that office for general election petitions is 2,500. No one challenged Mermelstein’s petition, so he will be on the ballot. The only other candidates are four Democrats and four Republicans.
The petition requirement for this office is lower than it has in the past, as a result of the U.S. District Court decision last year in Constitution Party v Cortes. The new requirements for statewide general election petitions, which were negotiated but not yet approved by the legislature, are 5,000 for the more important offices, and 2,500 for less important offices.
On August 4, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the Minnesota Secretary of State to file a response brief in Minnesota Voters Alliance v Mansky, 16-1435. This is the case over Minnesota’s law that bans any clothing or badges that has a political context, regardless of whether anything on the ballot relates to that clothing or badge. The lower federal courts had upheld the law.
When the Court asks for a response from the side that did not file the cert petition, that is a sign the Court is very interested in the case, and there is probably a 50% chance that the Court will accept the case.