The trial in U.S. District Court in North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v McCrory is in its second week, and the plaintiffs are still putting on their witnesses. This newspaper story describes the July 21 testimony, which concerns the manner in which the bill that curtailed voting opportunities went through the legislature in 2013.
The Sixth Circuit is still considering the rehearing request filed in the Michigan Socialist Party ballot access case on June 5. The case is Erard v Michigan Secretary of State, 14-1873. The Sixth Circuit had upheld the Michigan law on May 20. It is somewhat encouraging that the court hasn’t already denied the request; often requests for reconsideration are denied within two weeks or so.
The lawsuit challenges the part of the Michigan law that requires approximately twice as many signatures for a new party to get on, compared to the number of votes needed for an old party to remain on. For 2016 a new party needs 31,519 signatures, but in 2016 parties will only need 16,491 votes to remain on. The Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and Natural Law Parties are already on.
Erard is a pro se litigant, so he can only represent himself. Therefore the Socialist Party is not a co-plaintiff, but the court has never suggested that Erard (a past Socialist Party nominee for public office) has a standing problem.
On July 21, Virginia held a special election for Delegate, 74th district, in the Richmond area. The vote: Democrat Lamont Bagby 2,192 votes; independent candidate David Lambert 398 votes.
On July 21, the South Dakota Libertarian Party and the South Dakota Constitution Party filed an amended complaint in their lawsuit against the South Dakota deadline for a new party to get on the ballot. The case had been filed on June 15 to challenge the March 1 deadline that the legislature had passed this year, as part of SB 69. After the case was filed, opponents SB 69 filed a referendum petition, which suspends SB 69 until the voters vote on it in November 2016.
In response to the referendum petition, the state filed a brief saying the lawsuit should be dismissed, because the issue of the March 1 deadline may be moot if the voters reject the new law.
The two political parties have now responded by saying they also believe the original March 29 deadline is unconstitutionally early. The March 29 deadline was passed in 2007 and was in effect until SB 69 passed. Technically the March 29 deadline is still in effect, at least for the 2016 election. Before 2007, the deadline had been in April. No one had previously challenged the March 29 deadline in court.
The judge will soon decide whether the plaintiffs are permitted to amend their complaint at this stage of the lawsuit. It is likely that she will permit the new Complaint to be admitted.
A Florida group that supports top-two says it has rewritten its proposed initiative, and will start to collect signatures soon. The revised measure holds the actual election for state and county office in August, and only if no one gets 50% will there be a runoff in November. However, because federal law requires states to hold congressional elections in November in all districts, for Congress the measure won’t let anyone be elected in August, and the election between the top-two will be in November even if someone running for Congress does get 50% or more in August. See this story.
The story has some factual errors. It says Washington state started using top-two in 2004, but actually Washington started using it in 2008. The story says Nebraska has a top-two system. Nebraska has never had a top-two system. It has semi-closed primaries for president, congress, state executive office, and partisan county office. For legislature it has non-partisan elections with no party labels on the ballot.
