On March 22, Arizona held a presidential primary for the Green Party. With about 92% of the precincts reporting, the results are: Jill Stein 609; Kent Mesplay 139; write-ins or blank ballots 17.
In 2012, the results of the Arizona Green primary were: Stein 385; Mesplay 50; Richard Grayson 39; Michael Oatman 39; Gary Swing 30; Gerard Davis 18.
Here is the Montana Republican Party’s response to the U.S. Supreme Court, in Ravalli County Republican Central Committee v McCulloch. It was filed on Tuesday, March 22, only a few hours after the state had submitted its brief. The issue is whether the Republican Party can avoid having its June 7, 2016 primary (including the presidential primary) be open to persons who are not Republicans in their heart.
The Texas Tribune has this story about the Texas procedures for independent presidential candidates. The story would be better if it mentioned that the petition deadline for independents running for office other than President is June 30, whereas the presidential independent deadline is May 9. Anyone who challenges the Texas independent presidential petition deadline is overewhelmingly likely to win in court. There is no state interest in requiring independent presidential candidates to file petitions 52 days earlier before other independent candidates must file. The U.S. Supreme Court said in Anderson v Celebrezze that states must have easier ballot access procedures for independent presidential candidates than for other office.
Another deficiency with the Texas law is that presidential independents need 79,939 signatures, whereas independent candidates for other statewide office need 47,086. The U.S. Supreme Court said in Anderson v Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, at page 795, “The state has a less important interest in regulating Presidential elections than statewide or local elections”, and this quote was a key element of the March 17, 2016 U.S. District Court decision that struck down Georgia’s petition requirement of 50,000 signatures for independent and new party presidential ballot access.
Here is the Politico link to the results of major party presidential primary and caucus results for all states that have voted so far. The states that voted on March 22 are Arizona, Idaho, and Utah. Unfortunately the Politico map doesn’t include the territories. American Samoa also held its Republican caucus on March 22.
Associated Press says the Republican delegate count for the three leading candidates who are still running is: Trump 739, Cruz 465, Kasich 143.
The National Archives’ web page has this compendium of state laws on punishment for presidential electors who cast a vote in the Electoral College in December for someone other than the candidates they were pledged to.
The list of states says there are three state laws that say electors who vote “disobediently” shall be deemed to have resigned and will be replaced by the remaining electors. The list says these states are Michigan, North Carolina, and South Carolina. However, the South Carolina law does not actually say that, and furthermore the South Carolina law says the state chair of the political party involved may absolve a disobedient elector if the state chair believes that the elector’s behavior was beneficial.
For Michigan and North Carolina, the law saying that a disobedient elector automatically resigns, and will be replaced by the other electors, would not function effectively if all of the electors from that state disobeyed; there would be no one to replace them. Thanks to Jerrick Adams of Ballotpedia for the link.
