On May 7, Jefferson Griffin, the Republican nominee for North Carolina State Supreme Court Justice in November 2024, said he will not appeal the federal decision that said the original election results cannot be upset.
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On May 6, Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed HB 41. It changes the filing deadline for new parties from August 1 to July 1. Also it says that if a new party petition is found not to have enough valid signatures, the party that circulated it can’t just supplement the original petition. Instead it must start all over with a new petition.
Maryland is the second state this year to have made ballot access more difficult for minor parties. The first was New Jersey. Both states have Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature, and Democratic governors.
On May 5, U.S. District Court Judge Richard E. Myers II, a Trump appointee and a member of the Federalist Society, issued an order in Griffin v North Carolina State Board of Elections, e.d., 5:24cv-731. The ruling says North Carolina cannot refuse to count the votes of voters who voted in November 2024 election, and who had been told at the time that they had fulfilled all steps taken to have their votes count. The order is stayed for seven days in case the losing side wishes to appeal to the Fourth Circuit.
This lawsuit stems from the very close race for Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. The vote shows that the Democratic nominee won the election. After the election, the losing Republican nominee filed a lawsuit to disqualify thousands of voters. Some of them had missing data in the state’s list of registered voters. Others were overseas absentee voters who had not sent in a photocopy of their photo ID when they mailed their ballots. At the time the state instructions did not require them to do that.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections has proposed regulations concerning petitioning for new parties. They include requiring the names of all petitioners to be registered with the State Board before they can petition. Also, the party would need to train each potential petitioner.
Similar laws are being challenged in Arkansas in a federal lawsuit filed by the Arkansas League of Women Voters.
The North Carolina board intends that these new regulations (which are not yet passed) would go into effect July 1.
On May 4, the Massachusetts Forward Party held its founding convention. See this story. It hopes to be a ballot-qualified party by the 2028 election. To do that, it either needs to increase its registration to 1% of the state total, or to run a candidate for a statewide office in 2026 who receives 3% of the vote.
The meeting was hosted by Kerry Healey, who was the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts 2002-2006, and the Republican nominee for Governor in 2006. She is the Executive Chair of the national Forward Party.