The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Arizona Libertarian Party v Bennett, 15-598, on January 8, 2016. This is the case over Arizona’s voter registration form, which lists only the two largest parties and gives a checkbox for each, even though the state has four parties entitled to their own primary.
The Green Party is not ballot-qualified for statewide office in Illinois, but it is ballot-qualified in two U.S. House districts. Illinois is one of the few states in which a party that is not qualified statewide can be qualified in just part of the state. In Illinois, all qualified parties nominate by primary.
Both Green Party U.S. House districts have multiple candidates. In the 5th district in Chicago’s north side, the three Greens running are Rob Sherman, Warren Grimsley, and Richard Mayers. By contrast, only one candidate filed in the Democratic primary: the incumbent, Mike Quigley. No one filed in the Republican primary.
In the 12th district in the southern part of the state, the two candidates who filed in the Green primary are Paula Bradshaw and Sadona Folkner.
The deadline for anyone to file a primary petition challenge is Monday, December 7. So far no petition challenges have been filed in either Green Party primary. Mayers has political views that are not consistent with the Green Party.
According to this article, all the leading Republican presidential candidates are sending campaign aides to the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. The article doesn’t mention Guam specifically, but it is likely that the points in the article apply to Guam also.
The reason is not so much for the presidential candidates to win the small number of delegates that the Pacific territories have. Instead it is because of the rule that says no one can be placed in nomination at the convention unless he or she has a majority in at least eight states or territories. For that purpose, all states and territories are equally important.
Early and mid-December is always the best time for individuals to ask state legislators to introduce bills for the following year. There are already some states in which activists are working to get bills to improve the ballot access laws, including California, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Efforts in many more states are needed.
Some state legislatures require legislators to introduce bills very early in the session. Indiana requires them to be introduced by the end of 2015 if they are to be considered during 2016.
On November 3, 2015, Hartford, Connecticut, held a partisan city election. For city council, the city election law says that parties cannot nominate more than six candidates. Voters may only vote for six candidates. But the top nine vote-getters are elected. All seats are at-large.
The Democratic Party ran six nominees; the Working Families Party ran five nominees; the Republican Party ran three.
The six Democrats were elected. For the remaining three seats, three WFP nominees also won, outpolling all three of the Republicans. The three WFP winners were Cynthia Jennings, 2,076 votes; Wildaliz Bermudez, 1,801 votes; and Larry Deutsch, 1,664.
The three Republicans received 1,091; 1,042; and 866.
