On July 11, the Arkansas Press Association sponsored a gubernatorial debate. All four ballot-listed candidates participated. See this description.
Reply
On July 15, Chris McDaniel won a Mississippi lower state court order to see the poll books in Jackson County. McDaniel is trying to show that the number of voters who voted in the Democratic primary of June 3, and then voted in the Republican run-off primary on June 24, exceeds the number of votes by which McDaniel lost the run-off primary. See this story. Jackson County contains Pascagoula. It is the fifth most populous county in the state.
UPDATE: see this July 16 story about McDaniel’s plans to challenge the results as soon as he finishes gathering evidence.
The Federal Election Committee requires candidate for Congress to file reports this month, showing how much they have raised and spent during the first six months of the year. The current reports for two independent candidates show fairly substantial levels of contributions. Nick Troiano, running in Pennsylvania’s 10th district, has raised $85,408. Former U.S. Senator Larry Pressler, running for his old seat as an independent in South Dakota, has raised $72,656.
The Oregon Secretary of State says the initiative petition for a top-two system is valid, and the measure will appear on the November 2014 ballot. This article says that proponents have already raised $547,300, although they have spent most of it on paid circulators.
Proponents’ slogan seems to be that the initiative treats all voters equally, a claim that is not true. If the top-two measure is passed, based on how it works in California and Washington, registered Democrats will almost always be able to vote for a member of their party in November. In most elections, Republicans will also. But members of minor parties won’t be able to vote for members of their party in November. Thus the idea doesn’t treat all voters equally. Almost 7% of Oregon’s voters are members of minor parties.
On July 15, the Illinois Green Party and its statewide slate of candidates filed a federal lawsuit against three aspects of Illinois petitioning for unqualified parties. The case challenges the process when a petition is challenged. As in Pennsylvania, the process requires the petitioning group to produce a dozen or so individuals who are expected to defend individual signatures at the office of the State Board of Elections, all day long, typically for a full work week. The Complaint points out that when the major parties challenge minor party petitions, typically the major party challengers are financially able to pay individuals to do that work. The case is Summers v Smart, 1:14cv-5398. The case was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge John J. Tharp, Jr., who has a good record on ballot access. He wrote the decision in Jones v McGuffage, 921 F Supp 2d 888 (2013), which said Illinois had to reduce the number of signatures needed in special elections, when the petitioning period is shorter.
The case also challenges the unique Illinois law that requires newly-qualifying parties to run a full slate of candidates, even though Illinois does not require ballot-qualified parties to run a full slate. The Complaint points out that for a statewide slate, that requires the party to run a qualified attorney for Attorney General, and that this year, the Illinois Green Party’s preparations for the petition drive had to wait until the party had found such an individual. Finally, the case challenges the law requiring each petition sheet to be notarized. The Complaint notes that when challengers list the signatures they believe are invalid, their work doesn’t need to be notarized.