Texas held its primary for president and all other partisan office on May 29. Although final election returns are not available, the preliminary returns show only 1,443,782 votes in the Republican primary for President, and only 587,146 in the Democratic primary for President, for a total of 2,030,927 votes cast in both primaries together.
Texas has 13,065,425 registered voters.
By comparison, in 2008, there were 4,237,308 votes cast in both major party primaries for President.
On May 30, filing for the Arizona primaries closed, for candidates who wish to have their names placed on primary ballots. Stephen Dolgos of New River, Arizona, filed 171 signatures to run in the Americans Elect primary for Congress in the new 8th district. As far as is known, he is the first person who has filed to run in any Americans Elect primary in any state. Here is a link to the Secretary of State’s web page, showing all candidates running in primaries. Here is a link to the Dolgos campaign web page.
There will also be some individuals who file to be write-in candidates in Arizona primaries. The deadline for that is in the future. Thanks to Richard Grayson for this news.
Dolgos was permitted to obtain signatures from registered voters who are not members of a political party, as well as from voters who are registered as Americans Elect Party members.
On May 30, the Oregon Green Party filed a lawsuit in state court, arguing that the Secretary of State is misreading the definition of “political party” and that the party is ballot-qualified based on its vote in 2008.
The Secretary of State believes the vote test, when met, only gives a party one more election in which it is ballot-qualified. The party argues that when it met the vote test, that should count for the next two elections.
The party also argues that, separate from that, it should be considered ballot-qualified in three U.S. House districts where it met the vote test for Congress in 2010. Here is the complaint. The case is Woolley v Brown, in Marion County Circuit court. The Green Party will be recognized, no matter how this lawsuit turns out, if it gets its registration up to one-half of 1% by August 2012, and it is working on that goal. It needs about another 1,500 registered members.
Arizona requires ballot-qualified parties that intend to place a presidential nominee on the November ballot to submit their presidential elector candidates by May 30. No other state requires such early submission of presidential elector candidates.
On May 30, the Democratic, Green, Libertarian, and Republican Parties submitted their candidates for presidential elector. Americans Elect did not submit any candidates for presidential elector. This was no surprise, given the May 17 announcement that Americans Elect won’t nominate anyone for President this year. If Americans Elect had had the slightest inkling that it might change its mind about that, it would have submitted candidates for presidential elector. They could always have withdrawn later.
Marietta, Georgia, is holding a special election on July 31 to fill the Ward One seat on the Board of Education. When filing closed, only Brett C. Bittner had filed to be on the ballot. He is the executive director of the Georgia Libertarian Party.
Marietta is a city of 56,579. It is the county seat and largest city in Cobb County.
