On June 24, the Wisconsin Assembly passed AB 35. It lets independent candidates withdraw from the November ballot. The bill was introduced as a result of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidential candidacy last year. Kennedy wanted to withdraw but there was no procedure for him to do that, so he was forced to remain on the ballot.
On June 24, the Wisconsin Assembly passed AB 149. It expands the methods for a qualified party to nominate presidential elector candidates. Current law says the party’s legislators, or its legislative candidates, choose the electors. The bill says a qualified party can also nominate presidential elector candidates in a state party meeting.
In 2024, the Wisconsin Green Party was a qualified party, but it didn’t have any legislative candidates. It nominated presidential elector candidates anyway, by party meeting. But then the Democratic Party challenged Jill Stein and said she should be removed from the ballot because her electors hadn’t been chosen properly. The State Supreme Court rejected the challenge, so she stayed on the ballot.
Assuming AB 149 passes, that should prevent that type of challenge from being filed in the future.
On June 24, Maine State Senator Rick Bennett said that he has switched his registration from Republican to independent, and that he will run for Governor next year as an independent. See this story.
Bennett has served as the Republican Party state chair; as Maine’s Republican National Committeeman; as as President of the Maine Senate; as a Republican nominee for U.S. House; and as the state’s Republican presidential elector from the 2nd District. As an elector, he voted in the electoral college for Donald Trump in 2016.
On June 24, the Moderate Party of New Jersey asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to hear In re Malinowski Petition for Nomination for General Election. This is the lawsuit that argues that the State Constitution protects the right of two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate. The Moderate Party had wanted to nominate an individual who was also the Democratic nominee for U.S. House. The State Appeals Court had upheld the ban on fusion.
On June 6, the Mississippi Secretary of State asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Watson v Republican National Committee, 24-1260. The issue is whether the 1872 federal law telling states to hold congressional elections in the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November of even-numbered years means that all ballots must be received by that date. Here is the cert petition.
In October 2024 the Fifth Circuit had ruled that the 1872 federal law setting congressional election day means that all ballots must be received by election officials by that day. No other circuit ever came to that conclusion, although there haven’t been many cases. The Secretary of State’s petition to the court says if the Fifth Circuit is correct, then the laws of 29 other states are also void.
The current Mississippi law, which the Fifth Circuit invalidated, says absentee postal ballots must be postmarked by election day, but they are valid if they are received in the elections office by five business days after the election.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already accepted a related case, from Illinois. That case, Bost v Illinois State Board of Elections, 24-568, will probably be argued near the end of 2025. But in that case, the lower court had not only upheld the Illinois law that allows absentee ballots to arrive a few days after election day; it also said the plaintiffs don’t even have standing to raise the issue. The U.S. Supreme Court will only decide the standing issue, not the timing issue.
In the Mississippi case, the U.S. District Court had ruled that the Republican and Libertarian Parties do have standing, but that the Mississippi law does not conflict with the 1872 law.
