This article summarizes the lack of activity so far in the North Carolina legislature, over when the presidential primary should be and when the primary for other office should be. The legislature still hasn’t passed a budget, which distracts it from issues like the primary date. If nothing is done, the presidential primary will be in February but if the national party rules are followed, North Carolina will lost most of its delegates to both major party conventions.

The only ballot-qualified party in North Carolina other than the two major parties is the Libertarian Party. It nominates by primary.

Adding to the complexity is that fact that the North Carolina Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the state’s U.S. House and legislative district boundaries on August 31, and the Court may invalidate some of the districts. If that happens, it will take time to redraw new lines. See this story, toward the bottom.

Professor Lawrence Lessig has met his goal of receiving at least $1,000,000 in contributions and pledges, and will now seek the Democratic presidential nomination. See his web page here. He is campaigning on election law issues, mostly campaign finance, but he also talks about alternative voting systems. His first goal is to establish public funding for congressional candidates.
See this news story.

The Wichita Eagle has this article about the ACLU lawsuit over the status of Kansas residents who filled out federal voter registration forms. The Kansas Secretary of State had earlier said such individuals may only vote for federal office, not state and local office. An ACLU lawsuit on behalf of two voters is pending in state court. Presumably the case is called Aaron Belenky v Kris Kobach.

The Kansas Secretary of State granted full voting rights to the two plaintiffs after he looked up their records in the drivers license records and determined they are citizens. He then attempted to get their case dismissed on the grounds that they no longer have any cause to complain. But the state court ruled last week that they still have standing because (1) they were denied the right to vote in earlier elections; (2) the problem is capable of repetition because there are tens of thousands of similarly-situated applicants who still can’t vote in state and local elections.