New York Assemblyman Gary Pretlow (D-Mt. Vernon) has introduced AB 838. It would alter the definition of “political party” from a group that got 50,000 votes for Governor, to a group that got 100,000 votes for Governor. If passed, it would take effect for elections starting in 2016. Thus, it would remove the Independence, Women’s Equality, and Stop Common Core Parties from the ballot.

Pretlow has been in the Assembly starting in 1992. In November 2014, no one ran against him, and he had the nomination of the Democratic Party and the Independence Party.

On January 12, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Reed v Town of Gilbert, Arizona. This is not an election law case, but any case involving discriminatory treatment and free speech has the potential to affect election law. The issue is a town ordinance that says some types of signs may remain on the public right-of-way for months and may be large, whereas other types of signs must be small and removed very quickly after the event that the sign is advertising. See this story, which suggests that the town ordinance will be held unconstitutional.

UPDATE: here is the transcript of the oral argument. Thanks to HowAppealing for the link.

This is old news that Ballot Access News had previously missed. On November 4, 2014, an independent candidate was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Merrimack County district 10, which includes Hopkinton and part of Concord. The independent winner is David Luneau.

See this story about the campaign. The district elects three representatives. Luneau came in third with 2,293, and was elected along with two of the three Democratic nominees. Thanks to Darryl Perry for the information.

The December 1, 2014 Ballot Access News print issue said that fourteen independent candidates had been elected to state legislatures on November 4, 2014, but that should have said fifteen were elected.