The Los Angeles Times covered the August 27 story announcement by Cindy Sheehan that she will run for Governor of California in 2014. See here.
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On August 27, the Colorado Supreme Court struck down a state law that said if voters in a recall election fail to vote on whether the officer should be recalled, then they may not vote on the second half of the ballot. The second half of the ballot asks, in case the recall succeeds, which candidate should replace the recalled officer. The Court did not explain its reasoning, but said it would do so later.
This opinion does not stop the September 10 recall of two State Senators; it just clarifies that ballots are valid even if the voter leaves the top half blank. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
This article in the Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, Colorado, says the Constitution Party has suffered from being a qualified major party. The party is a major party because it polled over 10% of the vote for Governor in 2010. However, according to the article, the party would have been better off if it had remained a qualified minor party. Major parties must file many complicated campaign finance reports. The party’s reports have had errors and omissions, or have been late, so the party has been repeatedly fined, and now has a negative bank balance.
Qualified minor parties in Colorado generally nominate by convention and need not petition for ballot access for their nominees.
On August 26, the Green Party of Tennessee filed a federal lawsuit against Tennessee’s law that requires voters at the polls to show certain kinds of government photo-ID. The case is in the eastern district and is Green Party of Tennessee v Hargett. Here is the Complaint.
The lawsuit does not argue that it is unconstitutional for the state to require photo-ID, but says that the types of photo-ID are too limited. See this story about the lawsuit.
On May 14, Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin) introduced HJR 44, a proposed Constitutional Amendment putting the right to vote into the Constitution. As of August 26, it only has 18 co-sponsors. Ten signed up in May, one in June, five in July, and only two in August. See here for the list of co-sponsors. The U.S. House has 435 members from states and also six non-voting members from other jurisdictions.