On June 30, California election officials asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider Chula Vista Citizens v Norris, 12-55726. This is the case over the state law that says local initiative petition sheets must contain the name of the people who are proposing the initiative. The June 16 decision had invalidated the law. The Ninth Circuit hasn’t decided yet whether to rehear the case.
On July 15, Public Policy Polling released this Mississippi poll. It shows that 66% of respondents want to retain the open primary that Mississippi has always had. It also asks about the U.S. Senate race, and includes all three candidates on the November ballot.
Assuming the Republican nominee is Thad Cochran, the results are: Cochan 40%, Democrat Travis Childers 24%, Reform Party nominee Shawn O’Hara 5%, undecided 31%.
If the Republican run-off primary results are overturned and Chris McDaniel becomes the Republican nominee, the results are: Childers 37%, McDaniel 36%, O’Hara 4%, undecided 23%.
Only twice before has a minor party nominee polled as much as 4% for U.S. Senate in Mississippi: (1) in 1918 the Socialist Party nominee polled 4.96%; (2) in 2002, the Reform Party nominee, who was also Shawn O’Hara and who was the only opponent of Senator Cochran, polled 15.42%. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
According to this story, Chris McDaniel, who lost the Mississippi Republican run-off for U.S. Senate last month, has asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to order certain county election officials to provide all records from that primary. McDaniel believes that the number of voters who voted in the Democratic primary, and then the Republican run-off primary, is greater than the margin of victory by which he lost. Mississippi law forbids voters from voting in the run-off primary of one party if they had voted earlier that year in the primary of another party.
McDaniel also has a federal lawsuit, but that case has been delayed, first because it was filed in the wrong U.S. District Court, and then after it was filed in the correct U.S. District Court, the new judge recused himself because he is a friend of Senator Thad Cochran, the opponent of McDaniel.
The case in the State Supreme Court is In re: Chris McDaniel, 2014-M-967.
This story says the Florida legislature says it won’t appeal last week’s decision, invalidating some U.S. House boundaries. But the legislature wants the state court that issued the ruling to say that the old invalid districts should be used for the 2014 election. The Florida primary is August 26. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On July 13, Gravis Marketing released a poll for the Arkansas U.S. Senate, gubernatorial, and Attorney General races. Here are the results. The poll appears to have asked respondents about the Libertarian nominees but not the Green Party nominees. Among the three races, the only poll result likely to be trustworthy is the Attorney General’s race, because there is no Green Party nominee (or any nominee other than the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian nominees) for that office. Therefore, the only race in which the respondents were asked about all the ballot-listed candidates is the Attorney General’s race. That poll shows the Libertarian at 8%. Thanks to Michael for the link.
