In 2010, the Ohio election law was amended to require all qualified parties to certify the names of their presidential and vice-presidential nominees by 90 days before the general election. In 2012, that would be August 8. However, neither the Democratic Party, nor the Republican Party, will have held their national conventions that early.

The Ohio law is section 3505.10(B). It says the November ballot, in presidential years, will include “the names of the candidates for president and vice-president certified to the secretary of state or nominated in one of the following manners: (1) Nominated by the national convention of a political party to which delegates and alternates were elected in this state at the next preceding primary election. A political party certifying candidates so nominated shall certify the names of those candidates to the secretary of state on or before the 90th day before the day of the general election.”

Texas had a similar problem in 2008. The law required the names to be certified by a date that was earlier than the date of the Republican and Democratic national conventions. The Secretary of State did not enforce the deadline in 2008, and in 2009 the Texas legislature repealed the deadline. The Ohio legislature is still in session so it could fix the problem if it wished.

The U.S. Supreme Court has extended the deadline for Washington state, and the Washington state Grange, to file their responses in the case challenging top-two election systems. The new deadline is June 22. The case is Washington State Democratic Committee v Washington State Grange, numbers 11-1263 and 11-1266. If the state and the Grange had not asked for more time, the briefs would all be in by now and we could have expected the U.S. Supreme Court to decide in June whether to hear the case. But because of the delay, the decision on whether the court hears this case will not be made until September at the earliest, and not revealed to the public until early October.

Oregon held primaries for the Democratic and Republican Parties on May 15. No Republican appeared on the primary ballot for either Treasurer or Attorney General. However, write-in candidates campaigned for the nominations. Although the write-ins aren’t tallied yet, the unofficial figures show a large number of write-ins cast in the Republican primary for both those offices.

As of 7 a.m. Pacific time, the Secretary of State’s election returns web page shows 17,490 write-ins for Attorney General, and 16,523 for Treasurer. Those numbers will increase. Here is a link to the returns.