New York state law requires ballot-qualified parties to choose their presidential elector candidates no later than September 10 this year. The New York Independence Party state chair, Frank MacKay, had previously said that the Independence Party of New York will choose a presidential candidate on September 24. However, a date that late is not permitted. Parties that engage in fusion for president must coordinate their choice of presidential elector candidates with the major party that is running the same presidential candidate; the two lists must be identical.

Repeated inquiries to chairman McKay about the actual date of the selection have gone unanswered. Perhaps someone reading this blog post knows the answer, or has some suggestions on how to obtain the answer.

U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Stengel will hear oral arguments in Constitution Party v Aichele on September 11, Tuesday, at 10 a.m, in Philadelphia. This is the case that maintains that Pennsylvania’s system for checking petitions violates U.S. Supreme Court precedents going back to the early 1960’s, that voters and candidates can’t be forced to pay to participate in elections. The plaintiffs are asking for an injunction, or a restraining order, against any attempt by Pennsylvania to force the petitioning parties to pay as much as $100,000 if the petition-review process finds that the petition doesn’t have enough valid signatures.

On August 23, a Washington state court in Olympia heard Libertarian Party of Washington v Reed, in which the Libertarian Party argued that the Republican Party is no longer ballot-qualified. According to this news story, the Judge determined that the Republican Party did have a nominee for U.S. Senate in 2010. Apparently, months after the Republican State Convention was over, state party officers took steps that the judge construed to be a party nomination. This was apparently a small meeting. UPDATE: here is a more detailed story; note especially the second-to-last paragraph. FURTHER UPDATE: here is the 2-page opinion, but it is devoid of much interest because it doesn’t give reasons for the legal conclusion. The judge’s oral remarks were far more interesting.