On September 29, Arkansas filed a notice of appeal with the Eighth Circuit in Libertarian Party of Arkansas v Martin, 16-3794. The U.S. District Court had struck down a 2015 law that says newly-qualifying parties must nominate all their candidates (except president) an entire year before the election.

It takes chutzpah for Arkansas to continue to defend this law. In 1977, a U.S. District Court in Arkansas had struck down the April petition deadline for new parties to get on the ballot. The state did not appeal that decision and the legislature moved the deadline to May. But in 1987 the state forgot why it had done that, and moved the deadline to an even earlier month, January of an election year. That was struck down by a U.S. District Court in 1996, in a case filed by the Reform Party. The legislature had then moved the deadline back to May.

But, again, the legislature forgot why it had done that, and in 2015 moved the deadline to an incredibly early September of the year before the election. The 2015 deadline for a new party petition has not been challenged. But because it is obvious that it would be unconstitutional if challenged, the state does not have “clean hands” (a legal term) in the entire area of treatment of newly qualifying parties. The state has shown bad faith by ignoring previous rulings concerning deadlines. The case is Libertarian Party of Arkansas v Martin.

On September 29, California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed SB 1288. It would have let all California cities and counties use instant runoff voting for their own elections. Currently, only charter cities and counties can make that choice. The veto message says that instant runoff voting is too confusing for some voters.