On May 20, some California activists who are informally working for Bernie Sanders filed a lawsuit against some California county election officials, and the Secretary of State. They are concerned that many votes, both independents and party members, have not been adequately informed about the rules for the June presidential primary. One of the plaintiffs is the American Independent Party. Having a qualified political party in the lawsuit may help to overcome standing problems. The case is Voting Rights Defense Project v DePuis, 3:16cv-2739, northern district.

The lawsuit complains that many independent voters have already sent in the mail ballots they received automatically, and these ballots do not include the presidential primary. If such independent voters then learn that they could have requested a Democratic, American Independent, or Libertarian presidential primary ballot, it is too late for them, because no one is permitted to vote twice.

The lawsuit also complains that some of the counties have given information only to independent voters, when they should have given the information to all voters. And the lawsuit complains about the fact that instructions and procedures differ from county to county. Here is a Sacramento Bee story about the lawsuit. Here is the original Complaint, which has since been amended because the original cover sheet referred to the “American Independence Party” instead of the American Independent Party. UPDATE: here is a somewhat more detailed story, from a newspaper in San Diego County.

The Athens Messenger has this article about the March 2016 Ohio primary. It mentions the number of voters who changed party affiliation during that primary. Ohio voter registration forms do not ask the applicant to choose any party. But Ohio keeps track of the party affiliation of voters, by keeping a record of which party’s primary ballot a voter chooses on primary day. The story shows that many voters who had previously been considered to be Democrats chose the Republican primary ballot, so those voters are now considered to be Republicans. The number of voters who switched to the Republican Party is considerably greater than the number who switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.

On May 20, Emidio “Mimi” Soltysik filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit in Soltysik v Padilla. The issue is the California law that lets some party members have their party printed on the ballot (for congress and partisan state office), but not other candidates. The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles had upheld the law last month.

On May 17, the Independent Party filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit in Independent Party v Padilla. In the 9th circuit, the case is 16-15895. The issue is whether the Independent Party will be furnished with information about how many people registered into it. The U.S. District Court in Sacramento had upheld the action of the Secretary of State. He refused to ask county election officials to determine how many registered voters the party has. The U.S. District Court had ruled that if a party named Independent Party were to become qualified, that “might” cause confusion. However, there was no evidence in the case that confusion would result. There is evidence in the case showing that eleven states have a qualified party named Independent Party on the ballot (either currently or recently) but the U.S. District Court Judge did not mention that in his opinion.