The District of Columbia filing deadline for petitions for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, is August 10. The only presidential petition submitted is for Gary Johnson. Here is the list of candidates for the November election. The petition has not been checked yet. Even though the list says “independent” for Johnson, his ballot label will be “Libertarian.”
The only ballot-qualified parties in D.C. are Democratic, Green, and Republican.
The Arkansas Secretary of State has determined that all presidential petitions have enough valid signatures. There were three for presidential party status, and four independent petitions. Both types of petition needed 1,000 signatures. The presidential party petitions were for the Constitution Party, the Green Party, and Better for America. The independent petitions were for Rocky De La Fuente, Jim Hedges, Tom Hoefling, and Lynn Kahn.
Arkansas has three ballot-qualified parties (for all office): Democratic, Libertarian, and Republican.
On August 10, attorneys for Michigan asked the Sixth Circuit to reverse the order of a U.S. District Court Judge in the lawsuit titled “Michigan State A. Philip Randolph Institute v Johnson,” 16-2115. Michigan’s legislature had repealed the straight-ticket device early in 2016. The U.S. District Court Judge last month said removing the device would injure black voters, and ordered the state to leave the device in place.
The state is also asking for an expedited decision from the Sixth Circuit.
On August 9, attorneys for Connecticut settled two federal lawsuits over the state’s ban on out-of-state petitioners. The state agreed that the ban is unconstitutional for general election candidate petitions, and also petitions to get someone on a presidential primary ballot. The two cases are Libertarian Party of Connecticut v Merrill, 3:15cv-1851, and Wilmoth v Merrill, 3:16cv-223.
The state still bans out-of-state circulators for petitions to get someone on a non-presidential primary. Thanks to Dan Barrett of the Connecticut ACLU for this news.
Harry Enten has this article at 538.com, summarizing polling for president among black voters. He finds that both Jill Stein and Gary Johnson outpoll the Republican nominee. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
