David Swartout is an independent candidate for U.S. House from Michigan’s 7th district. Michigan law does not permit independent candidates to use any ballot label other than “No party affiliation.” Swartout is campaigning as an independent candidate and he filed a federal lawsuit on July 11 to obtain that label. He has a hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit on September 24. The case is Swartout v Johnson, 2:14cv-12768. U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman has the case.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson will hold a hearing in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted on September 12. This is the case over whether the party’s candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor should be on the November ballot.
On September 9, U.S. District Court Judge Stewart Dalzell declined Pennsylvania’s request to combine the two minor party ballot access cases. The Constitution Party case was filed in 2012 against the state’s unique system of putting petitioning groups at risk of hundreds of thousands of dollars for court costs if their petitions are found invalid. The Green Party case, filed this year, challenges the need to notarize each signature, the requirement that only registered voters may sign the petition, and the need to segregate signatures by county.
The two cases each have their own U.S. District Court Judge.
On September 9, Chad Taylor asked the Kansas Supreme Court to remove him from the November ballot. The case is based partly on statutory construction, and partly on the Constitution. Taylor won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, but then the Democratic Party endorsed independent Greg Orman, so Taylor wants to be removed from the ballot. However, the Secretary of State refuses to remove him.
In 1968, New York state Court of Appeals (the highest state court in New York) ruled that candidates have a common law right not to be forced to be candidates against their will. That decision removed Eugene McCarthy from the November ballot as an independent presidential candidate. McCarthy did not wish to run but some supporters had petitioned to put his name on the ballot. The Court removed him, per his wishes.
On September 8, the Ravalli County, Montana, Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit to obtain a closed primary for itself. Montana has open primaries. The county party took this action because in the June 2014 primary, Democrats intervened in the Republican primary for State Representative and apparently altered the outcome of a very close race.
The state will probably defend the open primary by saying a county party doesn’t have standing to sue, and that only the state party has standing. That has been an issue in the South Carolina lawsuit on the same subject, in which only the Greenville County Republican Party sued, not the state party. Thanks to Mike Fellows for this news.
