On August 12, U.S. District Court Judge David B. Hornby heard arguments in Woodhouse v Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices, 1:14-266. This is the case that challenges Maine campaign finance limits, which let contributors give twice as much money to a candidate who runs in a partisan primary and then a general election, as to an independent candidate or the nominee of an unqualified party.

This story describes the oral argument. It appears that the hearing went well for the plaintiffs, who want to give more than is allowed to the independent candidate for Governor.

The South Jersey Times has this story about the drawing for ballot placement in Gloucester County, drawing attention to the fact that Democratic and Republican Party nominees always get the top spots on the ballot and their own party column, whereas all other candidates are put helter-skelter into a “Nomination by Petition” column (although a handful of counties don’t use party columns).

New Jersey has the most discriminatory ballots in the nation, but there has never before been so much New Jersey press attention to the problem.

Maggie Toulouse Oliver, the Democratic nominee for New Mexico Secretary of State this year, wants to restore the straight-ticket device. Presumably if she wins the election, she will restore it by regulation. The New Mexico election code has never authorized the straight-ticket device, but before the current Secretary of State, Dianna Duran, was elected in 2010, past Secretaries of State (all Democrats) put io tn the ballot anyway. Duran removed it prior to the 2012 election. Democrats sued her over that, but did not prevail.