On June 14, Mike Garner, an independent candidate for Muscogee County Court Clerk, filed a lawsuit in state court against the petition requirement that requires signatures of 5% of the registered voters. The law requires 5,226 signatures, which is approximately 45% of all the votes cast for that office in the most recent primary. See this story.
On June 13, the New York Libertarian Party filed a federal lawsuit against the state law that bans out-of-state circulators. Merced v Spano, e.d., 1:16cv-3054. The case was assigned to Judge Sterling Johnson, Jr., a Bush Sr. appointee.
New York, New Jersey, Missouri, and Connecticut are the only states that still ban out-of-state circulators for general election candidate petitions. Earlier this year, the Connecticut ban was enjoined, in a lawsuit filed by the Connecticut Libertarian Party.
The briefs on whether injunctive relief should be granted will all be submitted by July 8, and the hearing is July 11 at 11 a.m. in Brooklyn.
On June 14, the Oregon Secretary of State released incomplete returns for the Independent Party’s presidential primary. No names were on that ballot for President, so all votes cast were write-in votes. The preliminary totals are: Donald Trump 7,896; Bernie Sanders 7,049; Hillary Clinton 3,340; Ted Cruz 1,703; John Kasich 655; Ben Carson 93; Gary Johnson 90; Marco Rubio 34; Jill Stein 20. The Oregon primary was May 17.
The results are not binding. The Oregon Republican and Democratic Parties did not let independent voters vote in their primaries this year, so the only ballot independent voters could use was the Independent Party ballot. The Independent Party will use its own internal process during July to choose a presidential nominee. Oregon permits fusion, so conceivably the party will choose someone who is another party’s nominee, and both party labels will appear for that candidate.
On June 10, two judges of the 10th circuit refused a request by the Kansas Secretary of State to stay a ruling of the U.S. District Court from May 17, 2016. The U.S. District Court had ruled last month that Kansas must register applicants at the Department of Motor Vehicles who signed under penalty of perjury that they are citizens, but who didn’t provide documents proving citizenship.
The Secretary of State had asked for a stay of the May ruling, but the 10th circuit refused a stay. The 10th circuit also expedited the state’s appeal. There were already 18,000 applications to register to vote that had not been processed, and it is estimated that there will be tens of thousands of additional applications during the next few months. The state had argued for a stay on the grounds that it would be a heavy burden to process all these voter registration applications.
The U.S. District Court who had issued the opinion is Julie Robinson, an appointee of George W. Bush. The two 10th circuit appeals judges who refused to disturb her ruling are Mary Briscoe, a Clinton appointee, and Jerome Holmes, another Bush Jr. appointee.
The voters who registered at the Motor Vehicles Department used the federal form, so they can only vote for federal office. Other litigation, on whether such voters must be allowed to vote in state and local elections, is pending.
On June 13, Illinois election officials said the initiative for an independent redistricting commission has enough valid signatures. It needed 290,216. A state court in Chicago will hear a challenge to the substance of the initiative on June 30. The Illinois Constitution does not permit statewide initiatives except on subjects that pertain to the legislature. Opponents of the initiative will try to persuade the court that this initiative does not qualify. See this Chicago Sun-Times editorial.
