On September 16, the Kansas Supreme Court will hear the case over whether the Democratic Party’s nominee may remove his name from the November ballot. He had withdrawn because the Democratic Party had decided to support the independent candidate, Greg Orman. The Secretary of State then ruled that the Democrats may not withdraw their nominee.
Rhode Island held primaries on September 9 for the state’s three ballot-qualified parties, the Democratic, Republican, and Moderate Parties. Ken Block, who had founded the Moderate Party four years ago, had changed his registration to the Republican Party and had sought the party’s 2014 gubernatorial nomination. However, he lost the primary to Allan Fung, Republican Mayor of Cranston.
The Moderate Party has its own gubernatorial candidate, but he is not likely to poll as much as 5% in November, and will probably lose its qualified status.
David Swartout is an independent candidate for U.S. House from Michigan’s 7th district. Michigan law does not permit independent candidates to use any ballot label other than “No party affiliation.” Swartout is campaigning as an independent candidate and he filed a federal lawsuit on July 11 to obtain that label. He has a hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit on September 24. The case is Swartout v Johnson, 2:14cv-12768. U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman has the case.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson will hold a hearing in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted on September 12. This is the case over whether the party’s candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor should be on the November ballot.
On September 9, U.S. District Court Judge Stewart Dalzell declined Pennsylvania’s request to combine the two minor party ballot access cases. The Constitution Party case was filed in 2012 against the state’s unique system of putting petitioning groups at risk of hundreds of thousands of dollars for court costs if their petitions are found invalid. The Green Party case, filed this year, challenges the need to notarize each signature, the requirement that only registered voters may sign the petition, and the need to segregate signatures by county.
The two cases each have their own U.S. District Court Judge.
