The November 22 Daily Advertiser, the daily newspaper for Montgomery, has this editorial, again criticizing the state’s restrictive ballot access law that was passed in 1995.
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On November 21, Tennessee held a special election to fill the vacant State House seat, 91st district, in Memphis. The unofficial vote: Democrat Raumesh Akbari 3,087; Libertarian Jim Tomasik 369.
Although that is a small number of votes, the vote in the Democratic primary on October 8 had been even lower. In that primary, eight Democrats competed for the nomination but only 1,812 votes were cast.
On November 21, the Federal Election Commission voted 3-2 to deny an exemption to the Tea Party Leadership Fund. The group wanted to be exempt from revealing the names of individuals who donate, and had submitted 1,400 pages of evidence to show that when individuals are publicly identified as supporting the Tea Party, they are harassed. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news.
Earlier this year, the Ohio legislature passed SB 47, which, among other things, said that independent candidates must complete their petitions within one year. They can start as early as they wish, but they must finish up no later than one year after they start.
On November 18, Richard Duncan, who was an independent candidate for President in Ohio in both 2008 and 2012, filed a lawsuit against that law. Ohio requires 5,000 valid signatures for a statewide independent. Both times he ran, he collected all his own signatures, so he took several years to complete his petitions. He was the only presidential independent candidate who got on the ballot in Ohio in 2012, so one wonders why the Ohio legislature passed this restriction, which almost seems aimed at Duncan. He got 12,557 votes for president in Ohio in 2012, and he was not on the ballot in any other state. The lawsuit is Duncan v Husted, 2:13cv-1157, southern district. The case was assigned to Judge Algenon Marbley.
On November 21, some Kansas voters who used the federal voter registration form to register to vote filed a lawsuit against the new dual registration system. The Kansas Secretary of State recently promulgated regulations that do not permit voters who use the federal form to participate in state and local elections. The lawsuit argues that this violates the Kansas Constitution, and also that the regulations were not promulgated legally. Here is a copy of the complaint. The ACLU is handling the case, which is Belenky v Kobach, 3rd circuit, Topeka.