Via Independent Political Report, here are the results of the Minnesota Libertarian Party caucus, held March 1. The caucuses were attended by 227 voters.
Here are the Minnesota Green Party caucus results, from the party’s web page. That web page only gives percentages received by each candidate, not the number of votes for each, so one can’t tell how many votes were cast.
The Independent Party has asked the Oregon Secretary of State to list these ten candidates on its presidential primary ballot: Republicans Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump; Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders; independent Mike Bloomberg; Libertarian Gary Johnson; and Green Party member Jill Stein. The Oregon presidential primary is May 17.
This Washington Post story says some evidence shows that many Democrats in northern Virginia chose a Republican presidential primary ballot. The story also says that the evidence is that many, if not most, of these Democrats voted for Marco Rubio.
On March 2, the New York State Senate passed SB 6604 by 34-26. It combines the congressional primary with the primary for state and local office, and sets that primary date on the third Tuesday of August. This year, that would be August 16. Current law has the congressional primary in June and the state/local primary in September. The presidential primary is in April.
SB 6604 moves the petition deadline for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, from August to July 26. Although that is unfortunate, SB 6604 is far more benevolent to independent candidates than the bill the Assembly has already passed, AB 9108, which moves the petition deadline to early June.
The bill would take effect this year. If the legislature does pass a bill setting the petition deadline on June 7, and says it is effective this year, that would create due process problems. There are many legal precedents that say states cannot impose tougher ballot access restrictions right in the middle of election season. Alabama added a new petition requirement for minor parties in 1982, but the U.S. Justice Department refused to allow the change to take effect for the 1982 election. Kansas doubled the statewide independent petition in 1990 from 2,500 signatures to 5,000 signatures, but the Secretary of State ruled that increase couldn’t go into effect in 1990. Michigan in 1988 required a petition for independent candidates, but a federal court ruled in Fulani v Austin that the petition could not be implemented for the 1988 election. Wyoming in 1984 added a petition requirement for new parties, but the 10th circuit said since the new procedure allowed one year to collect the signatures, but only two months remained in 1984 to get the job done, the state had to reduce the petition requirement for 1984 only, to one-sixth the normal number of signatures.
Usually, when states pass laws making ballot access more difficult, they don’t try to make the new restriction effective immediately.
Mississippi will not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the State Supreme Court putting Willie Wilson on the Democratic presidential primary ballot. Also the state is sending revised ballots, containing Wilson’s name, to the overseas absentee voters. But if any overseas absentee voter, or any other absentee voter, already cast the first ballot, it counts. See this story, which focuses on an argument between the Secretary of State and the Democratic Party over who should accept blame for the mistake that left Wilson’s name off the ballot.
