Both sides have now filed briefs in the Maine Supreme Court on whether the initiative passed by Maine voters last year, for instant runoff voting, conforms to the State Constitution. See this story.
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Nevada is one of the few states that has never held presidential primaries. The Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections has introduced SB 211, which would provide for presidential primaries for parties that are entitled to a primary for other office (currently, just the Democratic and Republican Parties).
The bill doesn’t seem to require any petition or fee for a candidate to get on a presidential primary ballot. The primaries would be held in February.
On March 3, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court rejected the attempt of the Democratic Party to substitute a new nominee for the special election, 197th district, State House, which occurs on March 21. See this story. The party will appeal to the State Supreme Court.
On February 28, Ricardo “Ricky” de la Fuente, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit against the California Secretary of State over his position on the ballot in the upcoming special election for U.S. House, 34th district. California uses a random procedure to determine order of candidates on the ballot. The Secretary of State considers the candidate’s surname to be “De La Fuente”. But the candidate says is actual surname is “Fuente” and the words “de la” in front of Fuente are not part of the surname. He also argues they should not be capitalized.
The ballot lists 23 candidates. If the plaintiff’s name were determined to start with a “D”, instead of “F”, he would be three places higher in the list, because in the random drawing, “D” was chosen ahead of “F.”
The case is Ricardo de la Fuente v Alex Padilla, superior court, Sacramento, 34-2017-80002546. Thanks to Mark Seidenberg for this news.
Michigan independent gubernatorial candidate Todd Schleiger is already campaigning, even though the election is not until November 2018. See this story.
Michigan has never had an independent candidate for Governor on a government-printed ballot. The only other states for which that statement is also true are Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Montana, New Mexico, and North Carolina. Schleiger will need 30,000 signatures, and he can only collect them in a six-month window of his choice.
One reason Michigan has never had a independent candidate for Governor on the ballot is that the state had no statutory procedures for independent candidates until 1988. Another reason is that the petition is as difficult as it is.
If Schleiger gets on the ballot, his campaign will be helped if the straight-ticket device is gone by 2018. The legislature repealed it in late 2015 but a court restored it on the 2016 ballot because the judge believed the straight-ticket device repeal injures black voters. The case is still pending in U.S. District Court, and the state recently filed its answer.