On September 18, the Fourth Circuit ruled that the Sheriff of Hampton, Virginia, should not have fired one of his deputies. The deputy had “liked” the Sheriff’s election opponent on Facebook, and the evidence showed that the Sheriff fired the deputy for that reason. The lower court had ruled that “liking” someone on Facebook is not actual speech, but the Fourth Circuit disagreed. Bland v Roberts, 12-1671.
Currently, Utah only holds party primaries when at least two candidates get 35% support at a party caucus. Candidates who don’t have that much support in party caucuses can’t run for party nominations. Plans are being made for an initiative that would eliminate the role of party caucuses in choosing nominees. All candidates seeking a party nomination would simply file to be on the primary ballot. The initiative would continue to let parties decide who may vote in their primaries. The initiative is due April 15, 2014. See this story, which uses the term “open primary” to mean a primary in which primaries are the sole determinant of party nominations.
U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman, a Clinton appointee, will hold a trial over Wisconsin’s law requiring voters at the polls to show certain types of government photo ID on November 4, 2013. The two cases are League of United Latin American Citizens v Deininger, 2:12cv-185, and Frank v Walker, 2:12cv-1128.
The League of United Latin American Citizens case was originally called Jones v Deininger, but the lone voter plaintiff in the case, Bettye Jones, died recently. On September 17, Judge Adelman ruled that that case may proceed, because the organizational plaintiffs have standing. The state had argued that only Jones had standing and that the case should be dismissed because she had died.
The Maine Secretary of State has released the first new registration tally since November 2012. The current percentages are: independent voters combined with unqualified parties 36.95%; Democratic 31.92%; Republican 27.25%; Green 3.88%.
The November 2012 percentages were: independent voters combined with unqualified parties 36.76%; Democratic 32.00%; Republican 27.39%; Green 3.84%. Here is a link to the entire report. Thanks to Thomas McMillan for the link.
On September 17, the Green Party and the Constitution Party filed this response brief in the pending ballot access case involving Tennessee. The case is in the Sixth Circuit. The parties had won in the lower court, and Tennessee is appealing. There will be one more brief, by state officials. The chief issues are (1) whether it is constitutional for the state to require over 40,000 signatures for newly-qualifying parties given that it only requires 25 signatures for any independent candidate; (2) whether it is constitutional to provide that the two largest parties always get the top spot on the ballot.
