The Maine Libertarian Party is attempting to qualify as a party. It will succeed if it has at least 5,000 registered members by December 1, 2015. The party now has approximately 1,000 registered members.
The only other time the Libertarian Party was a qualified party in Maine was during 1991 and 1992. It had 1,048 registered members just before the November 1992 election, but then it went off the ballot and all its registrants were converted to independents.
The Mayor of Burton, Michgigan, Paula Zelenko, is running for re-election in November 2015. The election is non-partisan. Her only opponent is in court, charging that Zelenko signed off as the circulator of her own petitions, but that she herself did not circulate some petition sheets.
See this story. Zelenko argues that the challenge to her petition was filed too late to be considered. Burton has a population of 30,000 and is near Flint.
On July 13, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro held a trial in Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner, 1:14cv-322. The purpose of the hearing was to hear from activists from the New Hampshire Libertarian Party about the difficulty of completing the party petition, which requires signatures equal to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. The party has done this petition drive twice, in 2000 and 2012, and both times took a year or more to get the job done. The lawsuit challenges the 2014 law that says no one can start this petition drive until January 1 of the election year.
Rich Tomasso and John Babiarz were the only two witnesses. Their testimony went on for four hours and fifteen minutes. The hearing went well. The judge said there will be a decision by the middle of August 2015.
Recently, supporters of Instant Runoff Voting for Duluth, Minnesota city elections submitted approximately 2,200 signatures on a city initiative petition. If the petition is valid, either the Duluth City Council will again consider whether the city should study Instant Runoff Voting, or the voters will decide that question.
Last month, the Duluth City Council voted 5-4 not to study IRV. Thanks to Bob Richard for this news.
On June 30, the Washington state legislature passed the budget bill, SB 6052. The Governor lined out a few appropriations but he did not line out funding for the presidential primary, so it will be held.
However, the date still is not determined. The existing law says it should be May 24 unless the Secretary of State and the two qualified parties agree to another date. It is likely the Republican Party will ask for an earlier presidential primary. The Democratic Party probably won’t want to use its presidential primary, but the Democratic Party is not likely to stop the Republicans from having an earlier primary. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
Another state which hasn’t settled the date of its 2016 presidential primary is North Carolina. The legislature came back into session last week.
