Last year the North Carolina legislature passed a law changing candidate-versus-candidate elections for State Supreme Court to retention elections. A retention election is one in which a justice whose term is up appears on the ballot with a “yes” or “no” next to his or her name.

A few months ago, a lower state court ruled that the new law violates the State Constitution. On May 7, the State Supreme Court issued an opinion in the same case. The court deadlocked 3-3 on whether to overturn the lower court ruling. When that happens, the lower court ruling survives, so now the state can’t hold a retention election for the one justice whose term is expiring. The case is Faires v State Board of Elections, 84A16. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.

The Hill has this article by Alexander Bolton about anti-Trump Republicans who are still interested in sponsoring an independent presidential candidate. Toward the end of the article, it quotes a leader of this group as saying that the Texas independent presidential petition deadline is vulnerable to a court challenge. Texas has a May 9 independent presidential deadline, but a June 23 deadline for independent candidate petitions for other office. No other state has an independent presidential deadline as early as May.

On May 5, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed SB 896. This bill lowers the number of votes for a party to remain on the ballot, from 10% for the office at the top of the ballot (President or Governor) to 2.5%. Although this is still more stringent than the median state, it is the lowest percentage of the vote that Oklahoma has required since 1913. The vote test between 1913 and 1974 was 5% at either of the last two elections; then it went to 10% at the last election.

This bill probably would not have been introduced, if the Libertarian Party had not got on the ballot this year. No other party qualified this year. It is likely that the legislature would not have been interested in lowering the vote test, if there had been no clear beneficiary for such a change. Thanks to E. Zachery Knight for this news.