On August 17, the Alabama Democratic Party State Executive Committee voted to remove its nominee for Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. See this story. The removal was based on comments that the nominee, Harry Lyon, had been making. The party replaced him with Bob Vance, a lower state court judge.

Alabama has partisan elections for State Judicial elections. Alabama law already permitted state political parties to prevent candidates from seeking a place on a primary ballot, based on whether the party perceives that the candidates is a loyal member of the party. But it seems somewhat surprising that Alabama also permits parties to remove their nominees, based on what the nominees say about political issues, after the primary is over. Lyon had been the only person who filed to run in the Democratic primary, which had been held in March.

On August 29, the Kentucky State Board of Elections unanimously resolved to treat all political parties equally, in the matter of how much money parties may contribute to their own nominees. Existing law provides that ballot-qualified parties may contribute up to $10,000 to any party nominee. Furthermore, if the nominee raised more than $10,000 from other sources, the cap on the party’s contribution rose to match the amount received from other sources. But the law seemed to limit donations from unqualified parties to their nominees to only $1,000.

Under the new policy, the unqualified parties will be treated the same as qualified parties, for purposes of determining limits on party contributions to party nominees. The Libertarian Party is responsible for raising this issue. Thanks to Ken Moellman for the news.

On August 22, the Virginia State Board of Elections notified the Libertarian Party of Virginia in an e-mail that the party has enough valid signatures, statewide and in each district. Furthermore, two days later, the Libertarians turned in even more signatures.

However, on August 31, an attorney representing the Republican Party of Virginia notified the Board that the party believes the vast majority of the Libertarian petition signatures are invalid. Virginia has no procedure for any outside group to challenge a finding of elections officials that a petition is sufficient. If the Virginia Republican Party wishes to dispute the finding of the Board, it must sue the Board. The Libertarians had turned in approximately 16,000 signatures. The law requires 10,000, with 400 in each U.S. House district.

The State Board also said recently that Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party has enough valid signatures. The State Board apparently hasn’t told the Green Party yet whether or not it has enough valid signatures.