On February 17, the Georgia House Interstate Cooperation Committee unanimously passed HB 929, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. There is an NPV bill in the State Senate as well, SB 376, but it hasn’t made progress yet. HB 929 has six co-sponsors, including members of both major parties.
According to this story, Democratic congressional candidate Gary Wegman’s spot on the Pennsylvania Democratic ballot for U.S. House, 16th story, was rejected because he accidentally submitted a photocopy of his signed declaration of candidacy, instead of the original sheet. He hopes that a state court will reverse the decision and put him on the ballot.
On February 19, the Indiana Election Commission rejected a challenge to Ted Cruz’s placement on the Republican presidential primary ballot. See this story.
New York state holds a special election for Assembly, 65th district, on April 19. According to this New York Times story, there is a possibility the Working Families Party nominee, Yuh-Line Niou, will defeat the Democratic nominee, Alice Cancel.
In New York special legislative elections, typically there are no primaries. Parties nominate by party meeting. In this instance, many people feel the Democratic Party’s meeting to choose a nominee was not fair, and that builds resentment against that nominee. This is how the Working Families Party won special legislative elections in 2015 against Democratic nominees, both in New York and in Connecticut.
On Friday, February 19, U.S. District Court Judge James M. Moody held a trial in Libertarian Party of Arkansas v Martin, e.d., 4:15cv-635. The issue is the 2015 law that says newly-qualifying parties must hold their nominating conventions an entire year before the general election, whereas the already-established parties don’t nominate candidates until the March primaries. See this story, which is quite detailed. The hearing lasted four hours.
Arkansas is the only state that has ever required any type of party to nominate all its candidates in the odd year before the election. Judge Moody said he hopes to have the decision on whether to grant injunctive relief out early next week.
