On May 5, U.S. District Court Judge Richard E. Myers II, a Trump appointee and a member of the Federalist Society, issued an order in Griffin v North Carolina State Board of Elections, e.d., 5:24cv-731. The ruling says North Carolina cannot refuse to count the votes of voters who voted in November 2024 election, and who had been told at the time that they had fulfilled all steps taken to have their votes count. The order is stayed for seven days in case the losing side wishes to appeal to the Fourth Circuit.

This lawsuit stems from the very close race for Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. The vote shows that the Democratic nominee won the election. After the election, the losing Republican nominee filed a lawsuit to disqualify thousands of voters. Some of them had missing data in the state’s list of registered voters. Others were overseas absentee voters who had not sent in a photocopy of their photo ID when they mailed their ballots. At the time the state instructions did not require them to do that.

On May 4, the Massachusetts Forward Party held its founding convention. See this story. It hopes to be a ballot-qualified party by the 2028 election. To do that, it either needs to increase its registration to 1% of the state total, or to run a candidate for a statewide office in 2026 who receives 3% of the vote.

The meeting was hosted by Kerry Healey, who was the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts 2002-2006, and the Republican nominee for Governor in 2006. She is the Executive Chair of the national Forward Party.

California Assemblymember Christopher Ward recently amended his AB 930 to drop the provision that imposes filing fees on certain write-in candidates. Thanks to Dave Kadlecek for this news.