On August 15, the Ninth Circuit ruled against the Hawaii Democratic Party, in the party’s lawsuit that tries to obtain a closed primary for itself. Democratic Party of Hawii v Nago, 13-17545. Here is the 13-page opinion, written by Judge A. Wallace Tashima.

Hawaii primaries are open. Voters at the polling place choose which party’s primary ballot to use. Registration forms do not ask applicants to choose a party, or to choose independent status. The opinion says that the very act of a voter choosing a Democratic ballot may constitute a valid form of party affiliation.

Also, the opinion says the Hawaii Democratic Party did not provide any evidence that the open primary harms it. The party had argued that such evidence is almost impossible to find.

This opinion probably means that the Montana Republican Party will give up trying to win a closed primary for itself. Montana and Hawaii are both in the Ninth Circuit. The Montana Republican Party lawsuit had been on hold until this decision came out.

CommonWealth Magazine has this hard-hitting criticism of Massachusetts ballot access laws and also severe criticism of Secretary of State William Galvin. CommonWealth Magazine is the voice of the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth. The article is by Evan Falchuk, founder of the United Independent Party.

On August 15, U.S. District Court Judge Karen Schreier declined to put the South Dakota Constitution Party nominees for U.S. Senate and state house on the November ballot. Libertarian Party of South Dakota v Krebs, 4:15cv-4111. The five-page decision says that the amended complaint in the case only sought relief for presidential candidates, so the court can’t go beyond the scope of the presidential election.

The reason the amended complaint only sought relief for presidential candidates is that when that amended complaint was filed, the state law appeared to block minor parties from being on the ballot for president unless they submitted a petition for party status by March 29. After the amended complaint was filed, the state re-interpreted its law and said that the actual deadline for a party petition was in July of election years, if they only wanted to be on for president and the various state partisan offices for which no party nominates by primary.

If the plaintiffs, the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party, had known the state was going to re-interpret its law in a permissive direction after the amended complaint was filed, then the amended complaint would have been worded differently. The case is still alive and a decision on declaratory relief will be issued in the future.