U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Fuller will hear oral arguments in Hall v Bennett on May 30, 2014. This is the case over ballot access requirements for independents and newly-qualifying parties in special congressional elections. The issue is whether the state must either lower the signatures, or grant a later deadline, in special elections, because the petitioning time in special elections is so much shorter.
The number of registered voters in the United States, in the 30 states (plus D.C.) that have registration by party, declined by 1,516,272 between November 2012 and March 2014. Nevertheless, during this period Libertarian registration in those states increased 11.4%. The registration total for all other nationally-organized parties declined during that period. The number of voters who are independent or who are registered in miscellaneous parties increased .7% during that period.
The April 1, 2014 printed Ballot Access News will include a chart showing the number of voters in each party, and the number registered as independents or in miscellaneous designations, by state. All of the data is from January, February, or March 2014, except that data from New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania is not available for 2014, so it is from 2013.
John Mirisch, who wants to be on the ballot for California State Senate, 26th district, appears to have failed to qualify. He needed 40 valid signatures and only has 38. See this story. Earlier Mirisch had won a Superior Court order saying his declaration of candidacy is valid, even though it was faxed.
Mirisch would have been the only Republican in the race. He could still file as a write-in. He is the Mayor of Beverly Hills. UPDATE: on March 26, a Superior Court ruled that Mirisch can’t be on the ballot because three of the signers did not personally write their address on the petition. Instead, the spouse of the signers filled in the address. See this story.
A New York gubernatorial election poll conducted by David Binder Research shows that if the Working Families Party ran its own nominee for Governor of New York this year, the party would poll between 6% and 13%, depending on who its nominee was. Its best showing, 13%, is if New York City’s Public Advocate, Letitia James, was the WFP nominee. See this story.
Texas has four ballot-qualified parties: Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green. This year it is not expected that any newly-qualifying parties will join them. The only party that had been thought to have the resources to surmount the difficult petition was the 1787 Party founded by Emily Mathews. However, the 1787 Party has decided not to try to petition this year in Texas or any other state, and instead to save its resources for getting on the ballot in all states in 2016.
