On October 31, the Michigan voters fighting the ban on photography at a polling place ask for an en banc review in their lawsuit, Crookston v Johnson, 16-2490. A few hours later, the court asked the state to respond. The state’s response is due November 1 at 3 p.m. central time. The original 3-judge panel had kept the ban in place, by a 2-1 vote. Thanks to John Anthony LaPietra for this news.
On October 26, the Ohio Libertarian Party filed this cert petition in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case is Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 16-580. It argues that the 2013 revision of the ballot access laws for newly-qualifying parties is unconstitutional. The case has two main issues: (1) whether it is unconstitutional for a state to provide a means for old established parties to obtain a list of their members, while denying this benefit to newly-qualifying parties; (2) whether the actors who caused the party to have no gubernatorial nominee in 2014 should be considered state agents.
This case is distinct from the party’s case in state court, which argues that the 2013 ballot access law violates the State Constitution.
Ohio Governor John Kasich has already voted in the November 8 election. He told the press that for president, he wrote in John McCain. See this story. As the story notes, John McCain is not a declared presidential write-in candidate, so Kasich’s vote will not be tallied.
Between 1947 and 1968, Ohio did not permit write-in votes in the general election. In 1968 a 3-judge U.S. District Court ruled in Socialist Labor Party v Rhodes that the U.S. Constitution requires write-in space on the ballot, so the legislature legalized write-ins in 1969. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
On the afternoon of October 31, the Missouri Secretary of State revised an earlier decision, and ruled that Rocky De La Fuente may be a declared write-in for president. Earlier in the day De La Fuente had been told that he can’t be a write-in candidate, because he had run in the Missouri Democratic presidential primary this year. But because Missouri let Gary Johnson run in both the Republican presidential primary and the general election in 2012, the De La Fuente ruling was reversed favorably to De La Fuente.
On October 27, a New York State Supreme Judge in Albany County ruled that the Reform Party’s organizational meeting of September 24, 2016, is valid. There are two factions in the Reform Party of New York. The faction that held the organizational meeting declined to choose any presidential elector candidates, and elected Curtis Sliwa as state chair. Sliwa is best known for having founded the anti-crime group Guardian Angels.
The other faction is beholden to the New York Republican Party and has generally nominated candidates for district and county office who are also Republican Party nominees.
The attendees at the Sliwa faction’s meeting had all been elected at the September 13, 2016 primary to the Reform Party state committee. The other faction challenged the meeting on the grounds that, potentially, there were 456 members of the party’s state committee that might have been elected in the September primary. But the decision points out that the 2015 party rules did not say the party needs to elect a state committee in every single district in the state. Because 16 of the 18 actual members of the State Committee participated in the September 24 meeting, which is more than the required two-thirds quorum, the judge said the meeting was valid.
The judge also said that the people who filed the lawsuit to invalidate the meeting had failed to serve one of the 18 members, and had failed to serve the Reform Party itself, which also means that the lawsuit should be dismissed. The case is Merrell v Sliwa, Albany Co., 5829-16. Thanks to Frank Morano for this news. UPDATE: here is a news story.
