U.S. District Court Judge Mark H. Cohen will hear De La Fuente v Kemp on Thursday, August 25, at 2 p.m. in courtroom 1707, at the federal courthouse in Atlanta. The issue is the Georgia law that requires petitioning candidates for president to submit a list of presidential elector candidates on July 1, even though the petition isn’t due until July 12.
This ABC story says that an internal Evan McMullin campaign memo lists seven states that have a ballot-qualified party that might nominate McMullin, putting him on the ballot in those states with no need for a petition. According to the story, those states are Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and South Carolina.
Minnesota has no ballot-qualified parties. Apparently the author of the memo believed that the Independence Party is on the ballot, but it went off the ballot in 2014.
The only Delaware ballot-qualified party that hasn’t already nominated someone for Presdent is the Independent Party, but the Independent Party already endorsed Donald Trump, although conceivably it could change its mind.
Florida has several ballot-qualified parties that conceivably could nominate McMullin, including the Independent Party and the Independence Party. Neither has ever before nominated anyone for President.
Hawaii has two ballot-qualified parties that could possibly nominate McMullin: the Independent Party and the American Shopping Party.
New York has two ballot-qualified parties that might possibly nominate McMullin, the Reform Party and the Independence Party. But those are unlikely. The leader of the Independence Party is a friend of Donald Trump. The leader of the Reform Party has promised the Republican Party to always nominate the Republican presidential nominee.
Oregon has one qualified party that might possibly nominate McMullin, the Constitution Party. The Oregon Constitution Party is angry with the national Constitution Party. The Oregon Independent Party has already determined that it will not nominate a presidential candidate this year. It is politically impossible that the Progressive Party would nominate McMullin.
South Carolina has two qualified parties that might nominate McMullin, the American Party and the Independence Party. The American Party already nominated someone else for president, but that party could change its mind.
This Washington Post story on Evan McMullin, independent presidential candidate, says he has not received support from big contributors. They may explain why he has not sued any states with restrictive ballot access laws so far. The story also has a great deal of new information about McMullin, including that his mother is now in a same-sex marriage.
John E. Palmer has this op-ed advocating that Maine voters pass the statewide initiative for instant runoff voting. It is in the Portland Press-Herald, the state’s largest newspaper.
The Hill has this article by Tom Squitieri, on the behavior of the Commission on Presidential Debates in recent past elections. Although there is a great deal of commentary about this, most other articles do not bring up the 2000 incident when guards at one of the presidential debates were furnished with pictures of all the minor party presidential and vice-presidential candidates. The guards were instructed to memorize the appearance of these individuals and bar them from the audience if they showed up.
The story also relates the 2012 incident when Jill Stein was arrested and kept in handcuffs for hours, for attempting to be in the audience at one of the debates.
