This newspaper story reveals that the Ohio Republican Party paid the legal expenses to the law firm that represented the individual who challenged the 2014 Libertarian primary petition for Charlie Earl. Earl was the party’s candidate for Governor, but because at the time all Ohio qualified parties nominated by primary, Earl had to get his name on the Libertarian Party primary ballot. His petition needed 500 signatures. It was challenged on the basis that the petition circulators didn’t fill out the blank on the form that asked who was paying them.

Only now has the news surfaced that the legal bill for the challenger was $300,000, and the Ohio Republican Party paid the bill.

The Libertarian Party had no candidate for Governor on the November ballot, so it went off the ballot. The party was on for two other statewide offices, and they polled almost 5% of the vote, but the Ohio law only counted the gubernatorial vote for purposes of retaining ballot status. Earl couldn’t be a write-in candidate in the Ohio Libertarian primary because the filing deadline for write-in candidates had already passed when he was removed from the ballot. That also explains who no other Libertarian could run for Governor in the party’s primary as a write-in.

On May 18, the Oregon House passed HB 3475, the National Popular Vote Plan for presidential elections. The vote was 37-21. This is the first National Popular Vote Plan bill that has made any headway in 2015. Now the bill goes to the Senate Committee.

On March 2, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Stewart Dalzell, a Bush Sr. appointee, struck down three Pennsylvania ballot access barriers, but only as applied to the Green Party and the Libertarian Party. The laws are: (1) the ban on out-of-state circulators; (2) the requirement that each petition sheet be notarized; (3) the prohibition on a voter signing for more than one minor party in any given election year.

(As to the notarization part of the decision, it interprets Pennsylvania election law to not require notarization of petitions, but it also says that if the law did require notarization, it would be unconstitutional. The law says the circulators must sign the petitions in their capacity as “affiants”. The state has always believed an “affiant” is someone who appears in front of a notary, but the decision says that is not necessarily so).

Judge Dalzell ruled against the minor parties on the issue of whether unregistered voters can sign petitions, and in a supplementary decision on May 11, he upheld the law that doesn’t permit signers from different counties on the same sheet. The case is Green Party of Pennsylvania et al v Aichele, e.d., 2:14cv-3299.

He also ruled that some of the other problems are moot, because the state has already voluntarily eased them. The state already agreed that the signers don’t need to include the year, when they fill in their date of signing. Also the state already agreed to drop language from the petition that implies it is still unconstitutional for circulators to live outside the district or outside the state. Finally, the state already agreed to eliminate blank space for presidential elector candidates on the state-printed petition forms, if the group doesn’t have candidates for presidential elector. Eliminating the spaces for presidential electors increases space for more signature blank lines on a single sheet.

Oddly, the relief is limited only to the plaintiffs in the case, the Green and Libertarian Parties. There will probably be new lawsuits filed by other plaintiffs, which probably will result in an expansion of the relief to all petitioning groups, at least for general election petitions.