On November 17, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal withdrew from the Republican presidential race. Presumably he will now contact state officials where he has been put on the presidential primary ballot already, and withdraw. See this story.
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is married to Ginni Thomas. Ginni Thomas has just made and posted a two-minute video endorsing Ted Cruz for President. See it here. Thanks to HowAppealing for the link.
The U.S. Supreme Court makes many election law decisions.
The Fourth Circuit has set a briefing schedule in Sarvis v Alcorn, 15-1162. The issue is the Virginia law that says the nominees of qualified parties always appear first on the general election ballot, ahead of independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. The U.S. District Court had acknowledged that being list first on the ballot does help candidates. But the Court said the U.S. Constitution permits states to favor the two major party nominees.
The Sarvis brief is due December 22, 2015. The state’s response is due January 25, 2016.
On November 15, statistician Nate Silver said he is “pretty worried” about the reliability of polls. He was speaking at a panel at Columbia University. See this story.
A Nebraska state court will soon decide whether to invalidate a referendum petition on the death penalty. Sponsors of the referendum got enough valid signatures, but their opponents say the measure should be kept off the November 2016 ballot because the petition was flawed. The petition must list the measure’s sponsors. But the definition of “sponsor” is unclear. See this story.