Charleston, West Virginia Mayor Danny Jones has changed his party registration from “Republican” to “independent”, according to this story. He has been elected Mayor four times in partisan elections. The last re-election for him was in 2015. He says he will not run for yet another term in the future. He also says he expects to vote for Gary Johnson in November.
The Oregonian, daily newspaper in Portland, has this article by Sal Peralta, a leader of the Independent Party. The second half of this article discusses the party’s plans to create a national coalition of one-state independent parties.
Governing Magazine has this story, publicizing the scandal that 40% (and sometimes more) of U.S. state legislative elections have only one candidate on the ballot in November. Generally, the fewer contested races in any particular state, the worse the ballot access laws are. States in which over half the legislative races typically have only one candidate on the ballot include most southern states, as well as Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Mexico. Thanks to several people for the link.
On June 17, just hours before the Arizona Green Party was set to file a lawsuit to get its presidential nominee on the November 2016 Arizona ballot, the Secretary of State asked for talks with the party’s attorney. It is likely the state will allow the presidential nominee of the Green Party to be on the ballot, even though the party didn’t submit the names of its presidential elector candidates by June 1.
The same problem happened in 1996 to the Arizona Libertarian Party, and in August 1996 the Libertarian Party won a lawsuit that put its presidential nominee, Harry Browne, on the November ballot. There really is no need for parties in Arizona to submit their presidential elector candidates so early in the year. Independent presidential candidates in Arizona don’t need to file the names of their presdential elector candidates until September.
On June 17, the South Dakota Secretary of State said the Libertarian Party petition has enough valid signatures, so it is back on the ballot. It went off the ballot in November 2014 for failing to poll 2.5% for Governor. The South Dakota laws for members of small qualified parties to get on their own party’s primary ballot are so draconian, the Libertarian Party wasn’t able to run anyone for Governor in 2014, so obviously it went off the ballot.
This is the first Libertarian petition for statewide ballot status to succeed since March 2016, when the Oklahoma petition was found sufficient.
