Seventeen Presidential Candidates Will Appear on Tennessee Presidential Primary Ballots

Fourteen Republican presidential candidates, and three Democratic presidential candidates, will appear on the Tennessee major party presidential primary ballots. See the list here.

The most crowded past Republican presidential primary ballot had ten names on it. Tennessee presidential candidates are put on the ballot automatically if they are discussed in the news media. Also candidates can submit 2,500 signatures, but no one did that this year.

Vermont Progressives Generally Win Procedural Ruling in Campaign Finance Case

On December 8, U.S. District Court Judge William K. Sessions cleared the way for the Vermont Progressive Party and some of its candidates to proceed in a campaign finance case. Corren v Sorrell, 2:15cv-58. Dean Corren had been the party’s nominee for Lieutenant Governor in 2014. After the election was over, Vermont state officials said Corren must pay $72,000, consisting of a fine and a refund of all the public funding he had received in 2014. The reason was that a Democratic Party official had sent an e-mail, inviting persons on her e-mail list to attend a rally at which Corren would be speaking. The Democratic Party did not have its own nominee for Lieutenant Governor in 2014, and instead cross-nominated Corren.

The state claimed the e-mail was an illegal campaign contribution.

The recent procedural ruling says Corren can maintain his federal lawsuit on some points, even though a case is pending against him in state court. Furthermore, it says David Zuckerman may intervene in the case to raise the points that Corren can’t. Zuckerman wants to run for Lieutenant Governor as a Progressive in 2016. Zuckerman is also permitted to challenge another Vermont law which says candidates who receive public funding may not announce until February 15 of the election year.

If Corren wins the case, he will seek the Progressive Party nomination for Governor in 2016. A hearing will be held in the case on January 24 at 9:30 a.m. See this story.

Ohio Primary Filing Closes

On December 16, filing for the Ohio 2016 primary closed. Here is a list of the candidates who filed for statewide office. Ohio has three ballot-qualified parties: Republican, Democratic, and Green.

No one filed in the Green Party presidential primary, but the party does have a candidate for U.S. Senate, which is the only other statewide office up in 2016.

For the presidential primary, 12 Republicans filed and 5 Democrats filed.

Frontloading HQ Blog Explains Republican Delegate Apportionment Rules in Each State

FrontloadingHQ has been running a series of blog posts, explaining the Republican delegate apportionment rules for each state. So far thirteen states have been covered. The blog’s author, Josh Putnam, has been posting a new state approximately every day. He covers the states in the order of their caucuses and primaries.

For example, here is his Vermont post, which was posted on December 17. He posted Iowa on October 6; New Hampshire on October 12; South Carolina on October 14; Alabama on November 9; Alaska on November 12; Arkansas on November 14; Colorado on December 9; Georgia on December 10; Minnesota on December 12; Oklahoma on December 13; Tennessee on December 15; and Texas on December 16.