On August 5, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe set a special U.S. House election for November 4, for the Seventh District. It will be interesting to see what rules the Virginia State Board of Elections sets out for petitioning candidates. Under a Fourth Circuit precedent from 1981, Mathers v Morris, states must ease ballot access rules in special elections, because the petitioning time is so much shorter.
On August 4, attorneys for the New Hampshire Secretary of State requested, and were granted, an extension of time to respond to the lawsuit Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner. The issue is whether it is constitutional to outlaw petitioning for the party during odd years. The state’s answer had been due August 18, but now it is due September 22.
Kentucky and Kansas both have closed Republican primaries. This year, so far, the two more prominent wins for establishment Republican U.S. Senators have been in Kentucky and Kansas, where incumbents defeated “tea party” Republicans.
By contrast, the two states with the most prominent wins in congressional races for “tea party” Republicans have been in Virginia and Texas, both of which have open Republican primaries.
The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader here reprints an editorial from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, condemning Pennsylvania’s ballot access laws.
Ken Krieger, one of the three candidates for one of the City Council seats in Peoria, Arizona, is about to decide whether to sue election officials for omitting his name from all absentee ballots. See this story. Replacement ballots have been mailed, but the notice with the replacement ballot just said that voters should vote again because one candidate’s name had been omitted from the first ballot. That notice did not even name Krieger. Thanks to Kory Langhofer for the link.
