The Democratic and Republican Parties of Texas held their primaries on May 29. In thirteen counties, no one voted in the Democratic primary; and in five counties, no one voted in the Republican primary. The primary was for president and all other partisan office. See this story. Thanks to Jerry Kunz for the link.
On June 11, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Keyes v Obama, 11-1225, a case filed on January 20, 2009, over whether President Obama meets the constitutional qualifications to be President. The plaintiffs included the American Independent Party’s candidates for President and Vice-President in 2008. The Ninth Circuit had ruled that none of the plaintiffs have standing. The Ninth Circuit said that if the lawsuit had been filed during the election campaign, the candidate plaintiffs would have had standing.
The lawsuit, and the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, had been filed by Gary Kreep, the San Diego attorney who was apparently elected to a Superior Court Judgeship on June 5, 2012.
On June 21, National Public Radio aired a twelve-minute interview with Gary Johnson. Read the transcript at this link.
The Idaho Republican Party state convention is meeting June 21-23. This article says that Idaho county election officials have requested the Republican Party to abandon a closed primary for itself. One of the county elections officials also advocated that county office be made non-partisan.
The story does not mention that this year, there was no presidential primary in Idaho for any party. Caucuses were used instead. 2012 is the first year since 1972 in which Idaho didn’t hold presidential primaries.
The New York legislature adjourned for the year on June 21. It did not pass the National Popular Vote Plan bill. Oddly enough, the bill did pass the Senate, which has a Republican majority. But the bill did not pass the Assembly, which has a strong Democratic majority. Generally, in other states, it is Democratic chambers that are likely to pass the idea, and Republican-majority chambers tend not to pass the idea.
