As previously reported, on February 12, a U.S. District Court struck down the Illinois law that requires newly-qualifying parties to run a full slate of candidates. The state appealed to the Seventh Circuit, but then requested three extensions of time to file its brief. Finally, on September 16, it filed its opening brief. The case is Libertarian Party of Illinois v Illinois State Board of Elections, 16-1667.
Mark Schmitt has this essay on Vox, explaining why the United States would do better with more than two political parties.
Politico has this story on how the Florida Secretary of State changed the ballot access rules on September 7, blocking several ballot-qualified parties from being on the presidential ballot.
On September 16, the Texas Secretary of State reversed a previous decision, and now says that write-ins for Evan McMullin will be counted. Here is the revised write-in list.
Here is a newspaper story. Apparently the original list included one elector who had to be replaced. Thanks to a commenter for this news.
The New York State Board of Elections has released the list of candidates who will be on the ballot for U.S. Senate and U.S. House in November. In the U.S. Senate race, the only names are the Democratic, Republican, Green, and Libertarian nominees.
For U.S. House, the following parties have nominees who are not the nominees of either major party:
Green Party in four districts: 5, 11, 13, 21
Working Families Party in two districts: 1, 24
Independence Party in one district: 1
Conservative Party in one district: 15
Reform Party in one district: 22
The only ballot-qualified party that did not have any nominees other than the nominees of one of the major parties is the Women’s Equality Party, which only nominated individuals who are also Democratic Party nominees.
Only two candidates got on the ballot who are not nominees of any qualified party. They are two independents, one in the 13th district and one in the 16th.
