According to this story, John Kasich submitted 2,184 signatures to be on the Pennsylvania Republican primary ballot, and the legal requirement is 2,000. A supporter of Marco Rubio has challenged the Kasich petition. The hearing on the challenge is set for Wednesday, March 9, at 1:30 p.m.
Also, this story says Ted Cruz’s Pennsylvania ballot position is also under challenge, both for petition validity and on presidential qualifications. The Cruz challenges will be heard Thursday, March 10.
According to this story, there is a lawsuit pending in a District of Columbia trial court that alleges the D.C. Board of Elections is improperly constituted, and therefore it is without authority to make any decisions. The lawsuit was started by opponents of an initiative. The opponents say the initiative should not be on the ballot because the Board was without authority to clear the initiative for circulation.
In 2013, the Virginia legislature passed HB 1346, to assist independent presidential candidates, and the presidential nominees of unqualified parties. Virginia law for general election petitions for president requires that candidates for presidential elector be listed on the petition, and one must live in each U.S. House district.
The bill lets the presidential candidates substitute new presidential elector candidates, in case the original presidential elector candidates turn out to be unqualified, or unless they die. This is especially useful in years when the U.S. House district boundaries are still unsettled during the petitioning period. Before the law was passed, presidential candidates hesitated to petition in Virginia early in the election year, because they were afraid the boundaries of the House districts might change later, and if some of the original candidates for elector listed on the petition found themselves in different districts, the petition would be invalid. Thanks to Bob Bastress for this news.
As reported earlier, the Maine Libertarian Party is in court over whether it should be a qualified party. The law requires a group that wants to be a party to have at least 5,000 registered members by December 1 of the year before the election. The party submitted 6,700 voter registration forms showing the applicant had registered “Libertarian” by the deadline, but election officials said only 4,513 are valid. For the lawsuit, the party’s attorney asked the Secretary of State for copies of all voter registration cards that were rejected. On March 4, the attorney for the Secretary of State refused to furnish those copies, and said the party will just need to get them from the various town clerks. The party believes that the Secretary of State is capable of obtaining these copies, and has asked the Secretary of State to reconsider. The judge may need to settle this.
Guadalupe Cano, one of the four town councilmembers of Silver City, New Mexico, will run for the State House of Representatives this year as an independent candidate. No independent has ever been elected to the New Mexico legislature. New Mexico didn’t even permit independent candidates until 1977.
The last time a member of any party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, was elected to the New Mexico legislature was 1914, when one Socialist and one Progressive were elected. However, New Mexico eliminated the straight-ticket device in 2011, so that will help Cano.
