C-SPAN wants to broadcast presidential electors meeting on December 19 and casting their votes, according to this story. As far as is known, neither C-SPAN nor other news media have previously broadcast such meetings. In most states, electors meet somewhere in the state capitol building and members of the public can be in the audience.
On the evening of November 29, a state trial court in Wisconsin heard Jill Stein’s lawsuit over whether the presidential recount should be conducted by hand, instead of by running the ballots through the vote-counting machines again. At the end of the hearing, the judge ruled that the state is free to use machines. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
The Washington Secretary of State has completed the official canvass and has determined that Gary Johnson got 5.01% of the total vote. This means the Libertarian Party is ballot-qualified for the next four years. See this story.
Here is a link to the official election returns for president in Washington.
The Libertarian Party was also a ballot-qualified party in Washington for the period November 2000 through November 2004. It earned that by polling over 5% for Lieutenant Governor and Auditor in the 2000 election. Because Washington started using a top-two system in 2008, qualified status became much more difficult starting that year. Parties no longer have nominees in Washington for anything except president, so the vote test at that point became much more difficult.
The only other party that has had qualified status in Washington state in the last 80 years was the Reform Party, which had it November 1996 through November 1998. The last third party before that to have qualified party status was the Farmer-Labor Party during the 1920’s, which elected several legislators. The Washington state vote test was 10%, not 5%, before 1977. Thanks to Chris Powell for this news.
The only states with no ballot-qualified parties, other than the Republican and Democratic Parties, are Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia. However, in Georgia, the only ballot-qualified third party, the Libertarian Party, is only on the ballot for statewide office, not district or county office.
On November 29, a 3-judge U.S. District Court ordered North Carolina to hold special elections for all legislative seats in November 2017. The primary for such special elections will be in late August or early September 2017. Here is the court order in Covington v State.
All state legislators in North Carolina normally have two-year terms, and all districts held elections earlier this month. But the winners of this month’s election, under the terms of the court order, last only one year, not two years. The basis for the order is that the current districts, drawn up in 2011, are an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The new court order gives the legislature until March 15, 2017, to draw new districts. If the legislature does not do that, the court will draw new districts. Thanks to the Election Law Blog for the link.
The state may ask the U.S. Supreme Court to countermand this order, but the U.S. Supreme Court has already had a chance to intervene in this case earlier, and it chose not to do so. Normally independent candidates and newly-qualifying parties have several years to complete ballot access petitions. The Fourth Circuit ruled in 1981 in Mathers v Morris that in special elections, the number of signatures must be reduced, or the petition deadlines must be extended. So, it is likely that ballot access for the 2017 special legislative elections will be easier in 2017 than it normally is.
Earlier this year, Mark Warren Moody, a New York voter, sued the State Board of Elections over the state’s unique law that prevents New York voters from voting in a presidential primary unless they had registered with that party six months and ten days before the April presidential primary. The case is pending in state trial court in Manhattan. Moody v New York State Board of Elections, 100678/2016.
The case is intensely fact-based, and points out that back in October 2015, the country had no idea that Bernie Sanders would be a strong contender for the Democratic nomination, and no idea that Donald Trump would be a strong contender for the Republican nomination.
The law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 in Rosario v Rockefeller. By a 5-4 vote, the majority assumed (in the absence of evidence) that the law is needed to prevent insincere voters who do not support a particular party from “raiding” that party’s primary. Moody criticizes the Rosario decision, but he bases his case on the state constitution. Moody failed to get injunctive relief earlier this year, but the constitutional issue is not settled yet. Here is his latest brief, filed October 26, 2016. Thanks to Cathy Stewart and Elizabeth Sandor for the brief.
UPDATE: Moody wants two of Donald Trump’s adult children to testify. News reports in the spring of 2016 said that they had not been registered Republicans in time to vote for their father. Moody hopes to emphasize that if even people that closely involved in electoral politics lost their presidential primary vote, that shows the existence of a big problem. See this story.
