New Mexico is one of the states that has always allowed qualified parties to change their names. Recently the New Mexico Secretary of State allowed the Libertarian Party to change its name to the Liberal Party USA. Then, shortly afterwards, she allowed the Free New Mexico Party to change its name to the Libertarian Party.
The new labels are reflected on the November 2024 ballot.
On September 24, Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen said he will not call a special session of the legislature to alter the way Nebraska elects presidential electors. Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that let each U.S. House district elect their own elector. The Governor wanted to covert Nebraska to the system used by the other 48 states, but he said there isn’t enough support in the legislature to make the change this year. Although the idea of switching to the system used by 48 states has a majority in the legislature, he predicts there would be a filibuster against the bill and so it couldn’t pass.
UPDATE: On September 24, the Georgia Supreme Court heard the case on whether independent presidential candidates need petitions from each candidate for presidential elector. If so, the petitions for Claudia De la Cruz and Cornel West are invalid, even though both candidates followed the advice of the Secretary of State. West v Wittenstein, S25A0178.
The oral argument went badly for the two candidates, but there is no decision yet. An earlier version of this post erroneously said the two candidates had already lost.
Some Georgia ballots have already been printed with those presidential candidates’ names on the ballot.
In the past, independent presidential candidates did petition for themselves in Georgia, and their presidential elector candidates did not petition. But the law was re-worded in 2017. The law is very murky but the plaintiff parties could not point to past practice in Georgia, because the new law is different from the old law.
The last states that required individual candidates for presidential elector to submit their own petitions were Minnesota and Wisconsin, but both states reformed their process over 70 years ago.
See this MSNBC story about the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. request to the U.S. Supreme Court to get on the New York ballot.
On September 23, Liz Cheney, speaking on the Rachel Maddow show, said a new political party may be needed in the U.S. See this story. Thanks to Brian Hauptli for the link.
