The San Francisco Chronicle has this article, pointing out that there are no announced Republican candidates so far for most of the statewide 2018 offices. Although primary ballot access filing doesn’t occur until March 2018, no one can be raising campaign funds without filing a campaign finance statement first, and for most of the statewide offices, no such filings have happened. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
As already noted, on April 26, 2017, the Eighth Circuit ruled that Arkansas’ March petition deadline for non-presidential independents is unconstitutional unless the state can prove that it needs the deadline to be that early, to have enough time to check the petitions for validity. Moore v Martin, 15-3558.
On July 3, attorneys for the state asked the Eighth Circuit to stay that decision, while it prepared a request to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the state’s objections to that decision. But on July 11, the Eighth Circuit refused the state’s request. The state is still free to ask for U.S. Supreme Court review, but in the meantime, if it intends to try to prove that the March deadline is absolutely necesssary to give it enough time to check petition validity, it must start to marshall that evidence. That would be difficult to do, given that Arkansas has an August deadline for independent presidential petition deadlines, and presidential petitions for parties that just want to be on for president, and the state seems to have no trouble checking those petitions in time for the November election.
On July 10, California AB 837 passed the Senate Appropriations Committee. This is the bill that requires election officials, whether at the polls or when dealing with postal voters, to fully inform independent voters that they are free to choose a certain partisan primary ballot in the presidential primary. If the bill had been in effect in 2016, it would have guaranteed that independent voters were told that they could choose a Democratic, Libertarian, or American Independent presidential primary ballot.
The bill had already passed the Assembly and now goes to the Senate.
As of July 8, 2017, these are the percentages of voters registered in each qualified North Carolina party: Democratic 39.02%; Republican 30.36%; Libertarian .49%; independent and other 30.14%. Here is a link to the numbers, on the State Board of Elections web page.
In November 2016, the percentages were: Democratic 39.51%; Republican 30.16%; Libertarian .47%; independent and other 29.86%.
On June 28, 2017, these were the New Mexico registration percentages for each qualified party: Democratic 46.39%; Republican 30.79%; Libertarian .55%; Green .32%; Better for America .06%; other and independent 21.90%. Here is a link to the numbers, on the Secretary of State’s web page.
In November 2016 the percentages were: Democratic 46.52%; Republican 31.01%; Libertarian .44%; Green .30%; Better for America .01%; other and independent 21.72%.
Better for America is the party that was formed to support the Evan McMullin candidacy. It is still on the ballot because McMullin polled more than one-half of 1%.
