On April 5, a state trial court in Columbus, Ohio, heard testimony in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 16-cv-554. Bob Fitrakis of the Ohio Green Party, Kevin Knedler of the Libertarian Party, and Bob Bridges of the Libertarian Party, all testified. The lawsuit argues that the 2013 ballot access law violates the State Constitution, because that Constitution seems to say that all parties must nominate by primary, yet the 2013 law says new parties don’t nominate by primary. The State argued that the Ohio Constitutional provision mandating primaries for all parties can’t really be enforced by a lawsuit.

Saskatchewan held a provincial election on April 4, 2016. All the seats were won by either the Saskatchewan Party or the New Democratic Party. Six parties participated, but the Liberals only won 3.6% of the popular vote (even though it is the governing party in Canada’s national government), and the Progressive Conservatives only won 1.3% of the popular vote. See this wikipedia article about the election results.

Doug McNeil of Baltimore, Maryland, died on April 2. He was Maryland’s leading force for ballot access improvement during the last thirty years. Before 1998, Maryland had the nation’s second-worst ballot access laws for minor party and independent candidates, for office other than president. Doug was a Libertarian Party member who worked very well with independents and members of other parties. He lead Maryland activists as they successfully persuaded the legislature to make a major improvement in 1998, and then persuaded the state’s highest state court to make an even bigger improvement in 2003.

Doug was diagnosed with cancer in January 2016. Doug had a masterful knowledge of Maryland ballot access laws, and they have been among the nation’s most confusing and convoluted of any state’s laws. Doug had wonderful people skills, which paid off through the long years of lobbying the Maryland legislature.