New York State Court Rules that Challenges to Women’s Equality Party Nominees Must be Made on a Case-by-Case Basis

On September 25, a New York State Court, Appellate Division, reversed the September 14 decision in the Women’s Equality Party lawsuit, DeLabio v Allen. The September 14 decision had invalidated all Women’s Equality Party nominations. The new decision says that the lower court decision is flawed. If court action is to be taken to remove a Women’s Equality Party nominee from the November 3, 2015 ballot, there must be a separate lawsuit for each challenged candidate.

This, of course, will burden the New York state courts, because already there are hundreds of Women’s Equality Party nominees on the ballot, and this ruling will cause a vast multiplication of lawsuits. Here is the new ruling.

The basis for the challenge to Women’s Equality Party nominees is that the party has no valid state officers, because the law requires a majority of a new party’s nominees to appoint interim officers for the party. In November 2014 the party had four statewide nominees but only two of them signed the paperwork appointing party officers. Two is not a majority.

U.S. District Court Requires Ohio Challenger to Reveal More Previously Hidden Evidence, in Libertarian Party Lawsuit

The U.S. District Court that is hearing Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted has ruled that Terry Casey must produce redacted portions of some text messages he sent in the spring of 2014, when he and others involved with the Ohio Republican Party and the John Kasich gubernatorial campaign were engineering a challenge to keep the Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate off the ballot.

Terry Casey is a Republican activist who was active in finding someone to challenge the Libertarian gubernatorial primary petition, and finding money to pay the challenger’s legal bills. In the end, the Republican Party of Ohio paid $692,000 in legal bills for the challenger, Gregory Felsoci.

The magistrate judge has ordered some redacted passages from text messages to be shown to the magistrate judge on September 25. One of the text messages is dated February 27, 2004, when another Republican texted Casey, “Would it help our case if one of the (Libertarian) circulators signed a Democratic petition this year?” The response from Casey was, “YES!! These are very important. Can we discuss more by phone tonight?” The response to that was redacted, but now the redacted part must be revealed, at least to the Magistrate Judge.

Michigan Legislative Hearing on Three Bills to Alter Electoral College

On September 24, the Michigan Senate Elections & Government Reform Committee took testimony on three bills that would alter the electoral college. SB 489 would give each U.S. House district its own elector. SB 197 would award electors in proportion to the popular vote within the state. SB 88 is the National Popular Vote Plan. See this story.