The Vermont Progressive Party is entitled to its own primary. At the August 28 primary, the party’s state chair, Martha Abbott, filed to run for Governor. Hers was the only name on the Progressive Party primary ballot. She let it be known that if she were nominated, she would withdraw from the general election, because the Progressive Party leadership wanted to have no Progressive nominee on the ballot for Governor, so as to assist the Democratic incumbent who is running for re-election.

However, another Progressive Party candidate entered the primary race for Governor. She is Annette Smith, an environmentalist, and she let it be known that if she won the primary, she would not withdraw and would campaign in November. At the primary, the number of write-in votes for Governor in the Progressive Party primary exceeded the number of votes cast for the ballot-listed Abbott. There were 371 votes for Abbott and 382 write-ins. However, after an initial count of the write-ins, followed by a recount, followed by a lawsuit, Abbott was determined to be the winner, on September 18. See this story. She has already withdrawn from the race.

Here is a longer story about the Progressive Party, written before the primary results were known.

The Progressive Party will have three statewide nominees: Cassandra Gekas for Lieutenant Governor, Don Schramm for Treasurer, and Ed Stanak for Attorney General. Gekas has been cross-endorsed by the Democratic Party.

In other Vermont news, it seems likely that Liberty Union will regain its “major party” status, which will entitle it to its own primary. It needs 5% in any statewide race. In the Secretary of State’s race, the only nominees are Liberty Union nominee Mary Alice Herbert, and incumbent James C. Condos, who has the nominations of the Democratic, Republican, Working Families, and Progressive Parties.

On September 21, the Sixth Circuit refused to rehear Gelineau v Ruth Johnson, the case to get Gary Johnson of Austin, Texas, on the Michigan ballot as the Libertarian presidential candidate. The state didn’t even explain, in any of its briefs, why James P. Gray, the Libertarian nominee for vice-president, should not be on the November ballot; he isn’t a “sore loser”. The Court seems to base its unwillingness to actually hear the case on the point that the case should have been filed sooner. Here is the two-page order.

The issue will be aired in the two Michigan Libertarian cases after the election is over. The very fact that the “sore loser” law doesn’t explain how to handle vice-presidential candidates, and presidential elector candidates, is further evidence that the law was never intended to apply to presidential primaries. For now, the only solace that Michigan voters who want to vote for Johnson have is that write-ins will be counted.

The largest number of write-ins for a presidential candidate in general election history was 58,412 (the Eugene McCarthy total in California in 1976). Within Michigan, the largest number of write-ins ever received by a presidential candidate in the general election was Ralph Nader in 1996; he received 2,322. Elections officials must perform extra work to handle write-in votes, so Ruth Johnson’s illogical and cruel decision to be the first official in U.S. history to keep a presidential candidate off the ballot on the basis that he or she had run in a presidential primary will cause extra expense and work for local election officials.

Every Gary Johnson voter in Michigan should check after the election to see that at least one Johnson write-in in that voter’s precinct was canvassed, and if a write-in voter finds a “zero” in the official record, that voter should participate in a lawsuit along with other such voters. The Michigan Libertarian Party can probably coordinate such an effort if it wishes.

On September 21, Gary Johnson, his running mate James Gray, and the Johnson-Gray Campaign filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in the central district of California against the Commission on Presidential Debates, the Democratic National Committee, and the Republican National Committee. The lawsuit alleges that the Commission on Presidential Debates and the two major parties are restraining competition. To answer the complaint that anti-trust law only relates to business, the complaint points out that the salary of the president is $400,000, and that Johnson is seeking to obtain the job of President, so economics is involved. The case is Johnson v Commission on Presidential Debates, cv-12-01600. Here is the complaint.

The case is assigned to Judge Philip S. Gutierrez, a Bush Jr. appointee. He has only had one previous case involving a minor party. He heard Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County v Bowen, a case against California’s restriction on out-of-district petitioners. In that case, he ruled that because the Secretary of State says she doesn’t enforce the law, therefore the plaintiffs lack standing to sue to overturn it. The Ninth Circuit took a somewhat different view, sending the case to arbirtration and signaling that if the arbitration doesn’t result in significant changes in state policy, the law will be held unconstitutional.

The lawsuit says that any presidential candidate on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the presidency must be included in the debates. The venue is proper because James Gray lives in the central district of California. The attorney for the case is Paul Jensen. The lawsuit was filed a few hours after the Commission on Presidential Debates formally said only President Obama and Mitt Romney may participate in the first two debates. Here is the Commission’s announcement. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the news.