On July 20, U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell refused to enjoin the new Arizona law that requires a very large number of write-ins in the primary of a small qualified party, in order for those candidates to be considered nominated. He did not decide the constitutionality of the new law. He said he needs more evidence. Ironically, if the Arizona Libertarian primary results in a complete failure of any Libertarian to receive enough write-in votes to be nominated, that is the sort of evidence that might eventually win the case. The primary is August 30. The case is Libertarian Party of Arizona v Reagan, 2:16cv-1019.

Thomas Rudd is the Lake County, Illinois Coroner. He is trying to run for re-election this year as an independent candidate. No one argues that he lacks enough valid signatures, but he is not on the ballot because he first submitted a petition to run in the Democratic primary late last year. But later he withdrew that petition and did not actually run in the Democratic primary. He has a court hearing on July 21 to try to get back on the ballot. See this story.

On July 19, proponents of a Washington state public funding initiative submitted signatures to the Secretary of State. It seems likely the initiative has enough valid signatures to qualify for the November 2016 ballot. Here is the text of the proposal, I-1464. The public funding only applies to legislative candidates, at least for the years 2018, 2020, and 2022. Later, if there is enough money, the program can be expanded to include statewide state offices.

Candidates qualify for public funding by raising at least $10 from at least 75 residents of their district. Qualified candidates can then receive public funding. Every registered voter will have the ability to ask the public funding office to send $50 to each of three candidates. Thus, unlike many other public financing systems, voters who want to help a candidate receive public funding do not themselves contribute any money (except for the initial group of 75 people who each contribute $10).

The office that runs the program would notify each registered voter in the state of his or her personal PIN, which must be used to direct the state office to forward the $50 amounts to the chosen candidates. The initiative makes other changes to campaign finance. The backers of the initiative seem eager to publicize those other changes, and the group’s webpage downplays the public funding part of the initiative. See their web page here. Thanks to the Center for Competitive Politics for the news.