On March 23, 2016, the Maine legislature passed LD 1484. Among other election law changes, it made the deadline for filing as a declared write-in earlier, from 45 days before the election, to 60 days before the election. The law went into effect on April 10, 2016. Therefore, the July 1 2016 printed Ballot Access News, which had write-in filing deadlines, is in error. The newsletter says the Maine write-in deadline is September 24, but actually it is September 9. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for this news.

It is not rational for states to set such early deadlines for filing as a write-in candidate. One of the reasons we have write-in space on ballots is to take account of unexpected events that occur in the weeks before election day.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chambers will hear Daly v Tennant on September 22, Thursday, at 1 p.m., in the federal courthouse in Huntington, West Virginia. The issue is whether it violates the U.S. Constitution for West Virginia to certify 17 petitioning (independent and unqualified party) candidates for the November ballot, and then remove them on September 16 because they didn’t comply with a requirement that didn’t appear to exist until September 15. UPDATE: here is a newspaper story about the hearing.

On September 20, the plaintiffs in the West Virginia ballot access case filed this brief, in support of their motion for an emergency order to put the candidates on the ballot.