Rob Port’s blog that covers North Dakota politics has this op-ed by Richard Winger, on North Dakota’s ballot access law that has prevented any minor party candidates for the legislature from appearing on the November ballot (with the party label) for the last 38 years.
New York State Board of Elections has posted the official vote tallies for the November 4, 2014 election at this link. All fifty states have now finished their vote tallies. New York is frequently the last state to finish. In 2012, New York official returns weren’t done until January 2013.
The Albuquerque Journal has this story about candidates who ran for New Mexico Public Regulation Commission, and who received and spent public funds for their campaign, even though they were unopposed in the election.
As of December 9, all briefs have been filed in the Sixth Circuit in Erard v Michigan Secretary of State, 14-1873. The Socialist Party challenges Michigan ballot access laws for new parties, arguing that the state discriminates against newly-qualifying parties, relative to old ones. For the 2016 election, for example, Michigan requires a newly-qualifying party to submit 31,565 signatures. But a party that was already on the ballot in November 2014 only needed to poll 16,491 votes for any statewide race to remain ballot-qualified.
This flaw in the Michigan election law has existed ever since 1988, when the legislature passed a bill that doubled the number of signatures needed for a newly-qualifying party, from 1% of the vote cast for the winner for Secretary of State, to 1% of the total gubernatorial vote. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Williams v Rhodes in 1968 that it is unconstitutional for a state to require more support for a newly-qualifying party than it does for an old party, but in the Erard case, the U.S. District Court still upheld the Michigan disparity.
Here is Erard’s reply brief, which is the last brief and which was filed December 9.
The Peach Pundit has this story about Georgia’s very restrictive ballot access laws, and says there is some reason to believe a bill will be introduced in 2015 to make them somewhat less onerous.
