New York Democrats Running for Delegate to Judicial Nominating Convention Removed from Ballot Based on Whom They Supposedly Plan to Support at the Convention

This Albany Times-Union story says that some Democratic candidates running in the primary for Delegate to the local Judicial Nominating Convention have been removed from the ballot, not because their petitions are invalid, but because their political opponents believe that the challenged candidates would, if elected, vote at the convention for someone who may not be eligible.

New York state political parties choose candidates for Judge of the Supreme Court at nominating conventions. The state is divided into twelve Supreme Court districts. Each district elects its own justices. There are no direct primaries for nominating Supreme Court Justices. Instead, within each district, each party holds nominating conventions. But delegates to the nominating conventions are chosen in party primaries.

Petitioning for convention delegates is extremely difficult. Most of the time, the only delegates who qualify for the primary ballot are candidates backed by the party apparatus. In this case, a rebel slate of delegates managed to complete the petitions, only to be told that they can’t run in the primary because they supposedly will vote for a Supreme Court nominee at the convention who may or may not be qualified to run. The rebel delegate candidates have filed a lawsuit to regain a place on the ballot.

This situation is very analogous to matters involving the electoral college in U.S. presidential elections. In 2012, the Libertarian Party presidential elector candidates were removed from the Michigan general election ballot, on the basis that they were pledged to Gary Johnson, who was supposedly ineligible under Michigan law to run for President because he had already run in the February 2012 Republican presidential primary in Michigan.

The State, Largest Newspaper in South Carolina, Carries Extensive Story on This Year’s Independent Candidates

The State, the daily newspaper for Columbia, South Carolina, has this lengthy article about this year’s independent candidates running in South Carolina’s gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. It has a great deal about some of the state’s minor parties as well.

The story says no one other than Democratic or Republican nominees has ever won statewide office in South Carolina. However, in 1954, Strom Thurmond was elected by write-in votes to the U.S. Senate, even though he was not the nominee of any party that year. He defeated the Democratic nominee. No Republican ran.

Paul Johnson, Former Mayor of Phoenix, Will Put Initiative on 2016 Ballot for Non-Partisan Elections for All Office Except President

According to this story, Paul Johnson, former Mayor of Phoenix, will attempt to qualify an initiative in 2016 to convert all Arizona elections, except presidential elections, to non-partisan elections. There will be no party labels on any ballot, except for President, under the proposal.

Georgia Secretary of State Bars the Only Libertarian Running for State Legislature

Although the Georgia Libertarian Party is ballot-qualified for statewide office, it is not ballot-qualified for district office. This year, the only Libertarian who tried to get on the ballot for a district office, Jeff Amason, managed to collect the signatures of 5% of the registered voters in his State House district. However, his petition has still been rejected, because his wife notarized almost all the petition sheets, and, unfortunately, she also circulated some of the sheets.

Georgia is the only state that requires each petition sheet to be notarized, and also says that a notary who circulated even one sheet is then unable to do any notarization work whatsoever for the petition. Amason’s wife did not, of course, notarize her own sheets, but that is irrelevant to Georgia. See this story.