This news story says the Marijuana Now Party only needs 800 more signatures on its petition to be a party in Nebraska.
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On April 22, the Socialist Equality Party announced that it will run a presidential campaign in 2016. The presidential candidate is Jerry White and the vice-presidential candidate is Niles Niemuth. See the announcement here.
The Socialist Equality Party was once named the Workers League. Under its old name, it first ran candidates in 1974, for Congress. In 1976 it ran no presidential candidate, but it placed eleven candidates for U.S. House on the ballot, including such difficult states as California and Illinois. It also put congressional candidates on the ballot in a few states in 1978, but not in 1980. In 1982 it appeared on the ballot in Michigan, the state with the party’s national office, but no other states. In 1984 it ran its first presidential ticket, and ran Ed Winn for President. He received 10,801 votes. In 1986 it had congressional or gubernatorial candidates on the ballot in Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.
In 1988 it ran Ed Winn for President again; this time he received 18,693 votes. It had no candidates in 1990, and in 1992 ran Helen Halyard for President, but she only polled 3,050 votes because she was only on in Michigan and New Jersey. In 1994 it had congressional candidates on the ballot in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
In 1996 it announced its new party name, Socialist Equality, and ran Jerry White for President. He was only on the ballot in three states and got 2,438 votes. It then stopped running candidates until 2003, when it placed a candidate on the ballot for Governor of California in the special recall gubernatorial election. That candidate, John Burton, received 6,748 votes with a ballot label of “independent.” In 2004 it ran Bill Van Auken for President; he polled 1,861 votes and was on the ballot in five states. In 2006 it was on the ballot for U.S. Senate in New York and U.S. House in Michigan. In 2008 it announced a very late presidential campaign, again running Jerry White, but he did not petition to be on the ballot anywhere and only filed for write-in status in New York, where he was recorded as having received 18 votes. In 2010 it had one candidate on the ballot, for Michigan legislature. In 2012 it again ran Jerry White for President; he was on in three states and received 1,097 votes. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the news of the 2016 announcement.
On April 22, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, issued an order restoring the ability to register to vote to all ex-felons in Virginia who have completed their terms and periods of supervised release. See this communcation from the Governor’s office. Virginia Governors have a state constitutional authority to restore voting rights for ex-felons, but most past Governors only exercised this power on an individual basis.
The order says that while McAuliffe is Governor, similar orders will be issued once per month, to include future eligible persons. The April 22 order is estimated to affect 206,000 persons. Of course, these individuals will now need to register. Thanks to the Brennan Center for this news.
Illinois, like many states that allow write-ins in partisan primaries, sets a minimum number of votes that a write-in candidate needs in order to be considered nominated. Moon Khan, a Democrat, campaigned as a write-in candidate for the Democratic nomination for DuPage County Recorder (no Democrat was on the primary ballot for that office). He needed 844 write-ins. After the initial count, following the March 15 primary, he was told he only had 699. He sued to force a recount, and the recount turned up enough additional write-ins for him to qualify. See this story.
On April 15, Maine Governor Paul LePage signed LD 1673, which provides for a presidential primary in the future. For 2016 and recent past presidential elections, Maine has used caucuses instead of presidential primaries.
The bill also requires a study of the expenses of having a presidential primary. The new law will be automatically repealed in 2018, so even though it is the law, it won’t take effect without further affirmative action in 2017 or 2018. The law says that presidential primaries will be closed. If any party wants to let independent voters vote in its presidential primary, it will apparently need to sue the state.
The presidential primary would be in March. Presidential candidates need 2,000 signatures of party members. The bill does not say the signers must be party members, but existing law says only party members may sign other types of primary petitions, and the bill leaves that intact for the presidential primary as well.