Last week, the Ohio Libertarian Party filed this brief in its ongoing ballot access lawsuit, which was filed in 2013 to overturn the 2013 law that altered the definition of a “political party.” The case is Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, s.d., 2:13cv-953.

The brief argues that the Ohio Constitution requires that all parties nominate by primary. The 2013 law says newly-qualifying parties must nominate by convention.

The brief also argues that it is unconstitutional for a state to let voters register into qualified parties, but not unqualified parties. Ohio voter registration forms do not ask voters to choose a party (or independent status). Instead, Ohio considers a voter to be a member of a party when that voter votes in that party’s primary. With no more primaries for newly-qualifying parties, voters won’t be able to join those parties in the eyes of the state. Courts that have ruled that if states let voters register into a qualified party, they must let voters into active unqualified parties, include the Second Circuit, the Tenth Circuit, a U.S. District Court in Oklahoma, and a state appeals court in New Jersey.

According to this news story, the current Republican Secretary of State, Jon Husted, who is running for re-election, supports the 2013 law. The Democratic nominee, Nina Turner, opposes it. The third candidate in the race, Libertarian Kevin Knedler, also opposes the 2013 law, although the news story does not mention him.

Harrison Hickman, a pollster and political analyst, has this interesting article about the three Classes of U.S. Senate seats. This year, the Class II seats are up. The article explains the statistical anomaly that the Class II seats are quite different from the Class I and the Class III seats. 2014 is a year in which the Class II seats are up.

Every southern state has a Class II seat, except for Florida. By contrast, only five southern states have a Class I seat.

The population of the states with Class II seats is considerably lower than the states with Class I and Class III seats. This is all just a result of a random process.

The U.S. Constitution went into effect in 1789, and said U.S. Senators would have six year terms. Congress then held a lottery to determine which of the U.S. Senate seats fell into each of the three classes. The purpose was to determine when each seat would be up for a new election. One-third of the Senators elected initially were assigned to Class I, and they had to run again in 1790. The Class II seats were up in 1792, and the Class III seats were up in 1794. The pattern has continued to this day. When new states were admitted to the Union, their two Senate seats were assigned to one of the particular classes, so as to keep the number of seats in each Class as equal as possible. Today, there are 33 Class I seats, 33 Class II seats, and 34 Class III seats.

Particular seats never change their Class. If a Senator is elected in 2010, and resigns in 2011, a special election is held for that seat in 2012. But since that is a Class III seat, it then has another (regular) election in 2016.

On October 23, a Honolulu Advertiser Poll was released for the Hawaii gubernatorial race. The results: Democrat David Ige 47%; Republican Duke Aiona 35%; Independent Party nominee Mufi Hannemann 12%; Libertarian Jeff Davis 1%. See here for more detail.