Independent candidate Mark Bray, running for the U.S. House in Alabama’s 5th district, has qualified for the November ballot. See this story. He is the first independent candidate for Congress to appear on the Alabama ballot since 2006. The 5th district is the northern-most part of Alabama. If Bray had not qualified, the incumbent member of Congress would have been unopposed.
On July 3, the Hawaii Democratic Party filed this reply brief in Democratic Party of Hawaii v Nago, in the Ninth Circuit. The issue originally was whether the party has a right to close its primary to just members. On appeal, the issue is whether the Hawaii law, telling all qualified parties that they must have open primaries, is unconstitutional on its face, or just as applied to parties that don’t want an open primary. The reply brief deals with that issue.
Unlike most legal briefs, it has relatively little reference to precedents, and instead depends on logic, and examples, to make its points. The brief has a very interesting analogy to a hypothetical law establishing one particular religion as a state religion. Even if you don’t normally read briefs, consider reading this one.
The Washington Post has this story about Libertarian candidates for the U.S. Senate, with special emphasis on the North Carolina race and Sean Haugh, the party’s nominee. The story is drawing widespread attention. Both PoliticalWire and the Election Law Journal have linked to it.
Traditionally, the two most influential newspapers in the U.S., the New York Times and the Washington Post, have paid very little attention to the Libertarian Party during the party’s 43 years of existence. However, beginning with the Robert Sarvis campaign for Governor of Virginia in 2013, the Post has been covering the Libertarian Party more than in the past. The New York Times, however, has not.
South Carolina held partisan primaries on June 10. At these primaries, the state tested a new type of government photo-ID law, in which anyone without an ID is still permitted to vote if the individual explains why he or she was unable to produce an ID. According to this story, no voter anywhere in the state was turned away from voting.
Gayle Chaney, independent candidate for Register of Deeds for Orange County, North Carolina, failed to gather enough signatures to get on the November ballot. The county Republican Party had been helping her petition drive, but the drive did not succeed.
In the May 6 Democratic primary, a candidate for Register of Deeds had defeated the incumbent Democrat. The winner of the Democratic primary says he will issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. No Republican had run in the Republican primary for that office, but after the surprise results in the Democratic primary, Republicans wanted to oppose the Democratic primary winner, so turned to the independent procedure to accomplish that (Chaney is a registered Republican). But, North Carolina procedures for independent candidates are so difficult, the drive failed. For non-statewide office, North Carolina independent candidates need a petition signed by 4% of the registered voters.
