On February 4, the Florida Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Brinkmann v Francois, SC14-1899. It agrees with the Florida State Court of Appeals that write-in candidates in general elections are “real” candidates.

The case arose because Florida has closed primaries, except in instances when all the candidates who file are members of the same party and the winner of that one party’s primary will be be the only candidate in November. At the 2014 election for Broward County Commissioner, district 2, all the candidates who filed for any primary filed for the Democratic primary. But, one person also filed to be a declared write-in at the general election.

The trial court said that the primary should be open to all voters, because it ruled that the general election write-in candidate was ineligible because he didn’t live in district 2. But the Appeals Court, and now the State Supreme Court, ruled that the write-in candidate was eligible. Although the election law says candidates for County Commission must live in the district when they file, the State Constitution says candidates for that office merely must live in that district on election day. The Florida Supreme Court said that the Constitution trumps the election law, and since no one knew where the write-in candidate would be living on election day (at the time the ballots were being printed), the write-in candidate was eligible.

The people who wanted an open primary for that seat argued that even if the write-in candidate was eligible, that his presence should be ignored because it was obvious that he was not a strong candidate and that he had no chance of winning. But the Supreme Court said those considerations don’t matter; a declared write-in candidate is a genuine candidate, regardless of his or her likelihood of winning or even polling a large vote.

Only Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders submitted petitions to be on the New York Democratic presidential primary. The deadline was February 4.

So far, the New York Democratic presidential primary is the first major party ballot in 2016 with only two names.

On February 2, the New York Assembly passed AB 9108, which moves the deadline for independent candidate petitions, and the petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties, from August 23 to June 7. The bill also eliminates the September primary for state and local office. If the bill becomes law, the June primary now used for Congress would include state and local primaries as well. The vote was 123-18.

The petition deadline change is not necessary for the main purpose of the bill. No media in New York state has reported on the deadline change. If the bill is signed into law, only Texas will have an earlier independent presidential petition deadline. Courts in five other states have ruled that June is unconstitutionally early for independent candidate deadlines (Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Nevada, and South Dakota).