Jay Paterno, a leading Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor, will face a petition challenge on March 31 in Commonwealth Court. He needs 1,000 valid signatures to get on the May 20 primary ballot, and the law also requires 100 signatures from each of five counties. The county distribution requirement should have been declared unconstitutional long ago, because in 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court said they violate “one person, one vote”, because counties have different populations.

Paterno only submitted 1,117 signatures, so chances are high that even without considering the county distribution requirement, he likely does not have 1,000 valid signatures, although it is possible. See this story.

On March 21, the Sixth Circuit agreed to expedite Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted. All the briefs will be in by April 15. As reported in an earlier blog post today, the fact that some primary ballots will have been printed by then will not injure the Libertarian candidates. If they win in the Sixth Circuit in late April, their names can be added to the ballots in the counties that use electronic voting machines, because that just involves reconfiguring the machines, rather than printing paper ballots. Because the three Libertarian Party candidates are each unopposed for the party’s nomination, their vote total doesn’t matter; they just each need one vote in order to be nominated.

The Newark Star-Ledger has this story about Balsam v Guadagno, the federal lawsuit filed on March 5 on behalf of some voters who want to vote in party primaries but who don’t want to join those parties, not even for one day.

New Jersey lets independent voters vote in partisan primaries, but if they do, they are then entered on the voter registration records as members of the party whose primary ballot they chose. They are free to fill out a new voter registration form, regaining independent status, as soon as they have voted in the primary.

Ironically, independent voters in New Jersey have more choices on primary day than members of qualified parties. On primary day, registered party members can only choose the primary ballot of the party they are registered with; they can’t change party affiliation on primary day.