On August 17, the Arizona Supreme Court issued an order, putting the top-two open primary initiative back on the November ballot. The Court said it would issue an explanation later. The decision is unanimous. Thanks to Warren Severin for this news. Here is a newspaper story about the Supreme Court action.
On August 16, Texas asked the Fifth Circuit to issue a stay in Voting for America v Andrade, 12-40914. On August 17, the voting rights organizations who had filed the lawsuit filed a brief, asking the Fifth Circuit not to issue a stay. The U.S. District Court had struck down several Texas restrictions on voter registration drives. Among the laws struck down was one making it illegal for anyone who doesn’t live in Texas to help register voters in Texas. Here is the state’s brief. Here is the opposing brief from the voter registration organization.
The Fifth Circuit is one of the circuits that has never ruled on in-state residency requirements for petition circulators or registration drive workers. The Fifth Circuit includes Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. None of those three states has ever barred out-of-state petition circulators. Circuits that have struck down in-state residency requirements for petitioners include the Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits. The Eighth Circuit has upheld them, at least in instances at which the plaintiffs couldn’t show real harm.
Mark Clayton, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Tennessee, told a reporter that he voted for Constitution Party presidential nominee Chuck Baldwin in 2008. See this story. Much of the story is very unfair to Baldwin.
The filing deadline for independent presidential petitions has now passed in Utah. The only independent presidential candidate who filed is Gloria LaRiva, the stand-in presidential candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Utah permits a partisan label for candidates who use the independent procedure.
Qualified parties in Utah are the Democratic, Republican, Constitution, Green, Justice, Libertarian, and Americans Elect Parties.
The deadline for independent presidential petitions has passed in Tennessee. Four candidates submitted a petition by the deadline: Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party, Merlin Miller of American Third Position, and Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party.
The federal courts put the Green Party and the Constitution Party on the ballot this year, so the Green Party and the Constitution Party didn’t need to petition for their presidential candidates. But because Tennessee election officials have hinted they don’t believe the court order applies to presidential nominees, the Constitution Party did the independent petition for Goode just to be safe.
