This Ohio news story has more details about the March 4 hearing on whether the Libertarian Party statewide candidates who petitioned to be on the Libertarian primary ballot should be removed.
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North Dakota held a gubernatorial election in November 2012. Independent candidate Paul Sorum has been fighting in court to overturn the election results, on the grounds that both the Democratic nominee and the Republican nominee should not have been on the ballot. The basis for this claim is that both candidates make paperwork errors when they filed for office. The Secretary of State had removed the Libertarian nominee, Roland Riemers, from the Libertarian primary ballot, for making the same error. Riemers later argued in the State Supreme Court that he should not have been removed from the ballot, but the State Supreme Court upheld the Secretary of State. Riemers got on the November ballot anyway, because after he was not permitted to run in the Libertarian primary, he petitioned to get on the ballot as an independent candidate.
As this newspaper story says, on March 3, the attorney for state government did not appear in court, and missed the argument, due to a misunderstanding about what time the case would be argued.
The November 2012 election returns for Governor were: Republican Jack Dalrymple 200,526; Democrat Ryan M. Taylor 109,047; independent Sorum 5,356; Riemers 2,616. Sorum argues that because the Republican and Democratic nominees were improperly on the ballot, their votes are invalid, and he is the legitimate governor. His case is filed in Mandan, Morton County, in district court.
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in Susan B. Anthony List v Driehaus, 13-193, on April 22. This is a challenge to Ohio’s law making it illegal for individuals to make false statements about candidates or ballot measures, with the intent to influence the election outcome. According to this story, the Ohio Attorney General filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledging that the law violates the First Amendment. But, the Ohio Attorney General, Michael DeWine, also filed a brief defending the law.
The brief in defense of the law is filed by DeWine in his capacity as the Ohio legal officer charged with defending state laws. The brief expressing the view that the law violates the First Amendment is filed in DeWine’s capacity as amicus curiae. Here is his amicus curiae brief. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On March 3, the Minnesota Senate Subcommittee on Elections, part of the Rules Committee, passed SF 585. This is the National Popular Vote Plan bill. It had been introduced over a year ago, and this is the first progress it has made in the Senate. The only midwest state that has approved a National Popular Vote Plan bill so far is Illinois.
On March 3, U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Fuller ruled that the lawsuit Hall v Bennett is not moot. Hall v Bennett is the case involving special elections in Alabama. The plaintiff, an independent candidate for U.S. House in Alabama’s First District last year, had argued that because the petitioning period for special elections is so much shorter than for regular elections, the state should either reduce the number of signatures below 6,000, or else at least allow more time for petitioning.
Last year the plaintiff, James Hall, did not win injunctive relief, so he was kept off the ballot in the December 2013 special election. But he still hoped to win declaratory relief after the election was over, to help independent and minor party candidates in future special elections in Alabama. The state argued that the case should be dismissed, but the March 3 fourteen-page decision says the case is not moot, and will proceed to a decision on declaratory judgment. The court set a status conference for March 12.
Alabama has lots of special elections for state legislative vacancies, and if Hall wins declaratory relief, that will help candidates in future special legislative elections as well as future U.S. House elections in Alabama.