Matt Lieberman has this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, defending the right of people to form new parties and get them on the ballot.
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on July 10, nineteen states, all with Democratic Attorneys General, filed this amicus in Watson v Republican National Committee, 24-1260. The Fifth Circuit had ruled that the 1872 federal law telling states to hold congressional elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November implicitly also requires that all votes must be received in election offices by the end of election day. Therefore, the Fifth Circuit had struck down Mississippi’s law allowing absentee postal ballots to be received by three days after election day.
The Supreme Court hasn’t decided yet whether to hear this case, but it is highly likely that the Court will hear it.
As of June 30, the percentage of voters registered in New Mexico in each party is: Democratic 42.35%; Republican 32.34%; Libertarian 1.40%; Green .52%; other and independent 23.39%
In May 2024, the percentages were: Democratic 43.24%; Republican 31.05%; Libertarian 1.13%; Green .57%; other and independent 24.02%.
For the current information, the state’s election website does not show the Libertarian and Green numbers. They are 18,822 Libertarians and 6,945 Greens.
This story says that Andrew Cuomo is not only leaving his name on the New York city mayoral ballot of November 4, 2025, but he will campaign. Currently he is in second place in at least one poll, mentioned in the article.
On July 11, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in No Labels Party of Arizona v Fontes, 24-563. It reversed the U.S. District Court and said that No Labels has no right to tell the Secretary of State to block anyone from filing for partisan office in the No Labels primary. Here is the 28-page opinion. The author is Judge Salvador Mendoza, Jr, a Biden appointee. It is also signed by Judge Holly A. Thomas and Judge Anthony Johnstone, who are also both Biden appointees.
The opinion is a defeat for the freedom of association rights of political parties, but a win for the ability of voters to vote for the candidate of their choice. The chief precedent that influenced the decision is a 2008 decision of the Ninth Circuit that said the Alaskan Independence Party had no right to exclude a particular candidate from filing to run in the AIP’s primary. The new No Labels decision, minimizing party rights, is philosophically completely different from a recent Eleventh Circuit remand opinion that said the Catoosa County Republican Party (in Georgia) may have the right to exclude candidates from its primary.
The Ninth Circuit No Labels opinion boosts the right to vote. It says on page 23, “Candidate exclusion burdens voters”, and also, in footnote nine, “Such candidate selection necessarily includes the right to vote for minor parties, a right that is ‘neavily burdened if that vote may be cast only for ‘two old, established parties.'” These quotes will help the minor party plaintiffs who are challenging the California top-two system (California, like Arizona, is in the Ninth Circuit).
Here is a news story about the decision.