On August 17, a state court in Philadelphia removed the Green Party nominee for City Commissioner from the November 3, 2015, on the grounds that he didn’t have enough signatures. The candidate will appeal. The judge who made that decision was not moved by the fact that last month, the procedure for checking signatures had been held unconstitutional as applied to Green Party nominees. Immediately after the ruling, the judge announced that he is retiring effective immediately and that this had been his last case. Thanks to Larry Otter and Carl Romanelli for this news.

The Guardian has this story about U.S. ballot access laws, as applied to the theoretical possibility that Donald Trump might leave the Republican Party race and run outside the two major parties.

The Tahlequah Daily Press here editorializes that is believes the Democratic Party of Oklahoma acted wisely when it recently decided to let independent voters vote in all its primaries, including the March 1, 2016 presidential primary.