Two presidential polls were released on June 26 that include four candidates.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll is here. See question five. The results: Clinton 47%; Trump 37%; Johnson 7%; Stein 3%; other or none 4%; no opinion 3%.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal results are provided in less detail: Clinton 39%; Trump 38%; Johnson 10%; Stein 6%; other or undecided 7%.
On June 22, the Nevada Secretary of State told the Green Party that its party petition only had 4,784 valid signatures. It needed 5,431.
The Nevada deadline for that petition was June 2. But back in 1992, a U.S. District Court enjoined the Nevada deadline for minor parties and independent candidates, which that year was June 10. That case was Fulani v Lau. The legislature afterwards moved the deadline to July, but over the years forgot why it had done that, and moved the deadline back to April, and then last year moved it to June 2.
Nevada is in the Ninth Circult, and in 2008 the Ninth Circuit struck down Arizona’s June 10 petition deadline for independent candidates, in Nader v Brewer, which makes the 1992 Nevada Fulani precedent even stronger now than it was back in 1992.
George Will has told an audience that he recently changed his Maryland voter registration from “Republican” to “independent.” See this story.
Eric Fink, who hoped to be the first independent candidate for North Carolina State Senate in the history of government-printed ballots, failed to have enough valid signatures. He needed 5,255 and only had 4,269 valid. North Carolina has never had an independent candidate for any statewide office on the ballot, except for Ross Perot in 1992. It has never had an independent on for U.S. House. The requirement is 4% of the number of registered voters. Thanks to Kevin Hayes for this news.
On June 22, the Arizona Green Party sued the Secretary of State in federal court over the Secretary’s refusal to put the Green Party presidential nominee on the November ballot. The lawsuit is necessary because the party did not submit the names of its presidential elector candidates by the June 1 deadline. Arizona Green Party v Reagan, 2:16cv-2027.
This case is very likely to win. The Libertarian Party of Arizona won an almost identical lawsuit in 1996 in state court. The new lawsuit has evidence that whenever the Republican or Democratic Parties missed a similar deadline, the states always overlooked the error. Such instances occurred in the past in Iowa, Indiana, Texas, and Florida, and perhaps other states.
