On September 2, Michigan state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let the state keep the straight-ticket device off the November 2016 ballot. See this story. UPDATE: here is the state’s application to the U.S. Supreme Court. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link to the brief. The case is Johnson v Michigan State A. Philip Randolph Institute, 16A225.
The Connecticut Secretary of State is working on tallying up valid signatures for various petitions for president and other office, but won’t finish until next week, although earlier it did determine that the Jill Stein presidential petition has enough valid signatures.
The Gary Johnson presidential petition (which actually has a stand-in presidential candidate, not Johnson himself) so far has 6,916 valid signatures, with many more reports from certain towns so far not processed. The requirement is 7,500. Connecticut law permits stand-ins.
On September 2, the Virginia Board of Elections determined that Evan McMullin has enough valid signatures on his petition, but Rocky De La Fuente does not. The Virginia Board had previously determined that Gary Johnson and Jill Stein have enough valid signatures.
On September 2, the New Hampshire Secretary of State determined that the Green Party presidential petition is valid. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for this news. This is the first time the Green Party presidential nominee has been on in New Hampshire since 2000. In 2012, Jill Stein was credited with 324 write-ins in New Hampshire.
On November 8, Colorado voters will vote on Initiative 140, which would create presidential primaries for parties that polled at least 10% of the vote in the last election. Here is the text. Independent voters could vote in either major party’s primary. However, members of other parties would not be permitted to change their party registration on presidential primary date for the purpose of receiving a particular party’s primary ballot. The presidential primary would be in March. The two major parties would set the date within March, assuming they agree.
