On June 15, the Jill Stein campaign announced that 203 Green Party delegates have been selected who are pledged to vote for Stein, so that she is now assured of the presidential nomination. The national convention is in Houston, Texas, August 6-7.
The District of Columbia held primaries for the Democratic, Republican, and Green Parties on June 14. See here for the results. Click on the name of the particular party, to see that party’s results.
Eleanor Garcia was on the ballot in the June 7, 2016 California primary for U.S. Senate. She was the nominee of the Socialist Workers Party. As of June 15, her vote total is 49,138, and there are still several million uncounted ballots. It seems inevitable her final total will be over 50,000. California law does not permit every candidate to list his or her party on the ballot. Because the Socialist Workers Party is not ballot-qualified, she was on the ballot as “party preference: none.”
The last time a Socialist Workers Party candidate got over 50,000 votes was in November 2004, when Carole Lesnick received 61,780 votes for Ohio State Board of Education, district 11, which includes Cleveland. That was a 3-candidate race. Ohio State Board of Education races are non-partisan, so no party label was on the ballot.
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.
