According to this story, Libertarian Party vice-presidential nominee William Weld says he and Gary Johnson will soon ask each member of Congress to ask the Commission on Presidential Debates to relax the rules on who can be included.
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On August 25, the Illinois Supreme Court issued an opinion in Hooker v Illinois State Board of Elections, 2016 IL 121077. The Court, by a vote of 4-3, said that the statewide initiative for a nonpartisan redistricting commission may not be on the ballot, even though it had enough valid signatures. The Illinois Constitution provides for the statewide initiative but severely constrains the subject matter of such initiatives.
Here is the decision. The dissents are extremely passionate, eloquent, and critical of the majority opinion. Thanks to Thomas Jones and Rick Hasen for this news.
On August 25, Wisconsin election officials approved both independent presidential petitions, which were filed by Monica Moorehead of the Workers World Party, and Rocky De La Fuente. See this story.
The ballot-qualified parties in Wisconsin are Constitution, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, and Republican.
On August 25, Quinnipiac released a poll about the presidential election. Question Ten asked if respondents think Gary Johnson should be in the debates. The response: 62% yes; 29% no; 9% undecided. Here is the poll; scroll down to question ten.
Chris Suprun, a Texas Republican candidate for presidential elector, says if elected in November, he may not vote for Donald Trump in December. See this Politico story. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
This story, and similar stories, often point out that some states have laws telling presidential electors that they must vote for the presidential candidate they had said they would vote for. These stories never point out that these laws are unenforceable. A presidential elector has the constitutional right to help choose the President, regardless of any state law. A state may punish such an elector, but a state can’t tell him or her how to vote.
Three states say that presidential electors who are “faithless” are deemed to have resigned, and are instantly replaced by the other electors from that state. But if the entire state delegation casts “faithless” votes, that law won’t work, because then that state wouldn’t have any electors.