On December 29, George Pataki, former Governor of New York, ended his quest for the Republican presidential nomination. See this story. His name is now on the ballot in Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. He cannot remove his name from these ballots. Either these states don’t permit withdrawal, or it is too late to withdraw. Thanks to commenter David for this news.
On December 28, Rocky De La Fuente submitted approximately 18,000 signatures, hoping to get on the Democratic presidential primary ballot in North Carolina. The law says candidates discussed in the news media are put on the ballot automatically. The North Carolina Board of Elections refused to put him on the ballot under that provision, so he used the alternate method of obtaining 10,000 valid signatures. It is believed he is the first presidential primary candidate in North Carolina history to attempt this method.
The signatures were all gathered in eleven days. So far, according to the North Carolina Board of Elections web page, 8,384 signatures have been checked, and only 4,423 of them were valid, for a validity rate of 52.8%. If that trend continues, he will fall short by approximately 500 signatures. In that case, he may be able to show that the county election boards did a poor job of checking the signatures.
Texas has a unique law that requires newly-qualifying parties to notify the state by January 2 of the election year, if they wish to petition during the election year. Petitioning itself can’t start in Texas until March.
The Constitution Party has now filed the notice. The parties that had previously filed it for 2016 are Modern Whig, Reform, Christian, and Veterans.
On December 27, John McAfee became a dues-paying member of the Libertarian Party. He lives in Alabama. He had said last week that he will seek the party’s presidential nomination.
On December 28, Rasmussen released a general election poll for president. The results: Hillary Clinton 37%, Donald Trump 36%, someone else 22%, undecided 5%. For more detail, see here.
