The District of Columbia primaries this year were on April 3, both for President and all other partisan office. For decades, the rule concerning party nominations, when no name is on the primary ballot for a particular office, has been that the person who gets the most write-ins becomes the party nominee (assuming that person is qualified to receive the nomination).

If a write-in winner is not a member of the same party, D.C. disqualifies that person. The old rules said that when the person who gets the most write-ins is disqualified, the person who gets the second highest number of write-ins is then nominated (assuming that 2nd place finisher meets the membership qualifications).

This year, several Greens expected to win Green Party nominations for certain partisan offices via write-ins in the Green Party primary. After the primary was over, they were told that the rules had changed, although the new rule was not final until after the primary. The new rules say that when the write-in candidate who gets the most write-ins is disqualified, no one has won the primary. The second-place finisher is out of luck.

Fortunately, the rules still permit a qualified party that did not nominate anyone in its primary to then choose a nominee by party meeting. The Green Party has now held a party meeting to nominate the Green Party members who had thought they had won the Green Party via primary write-ins. They had received fewer write-ins than certain Democratic Party members for “Shadow” U.S. Senate and “Shadow” U.S. House. The Democrats were not eligible to receive the write-in nominations because of their party membership, so the two Greens had expected to be nominated via write-ins. The two Greens are David Schwartzman for Shadow U.S. Senator, and G. Lee Aikin for Shadow U.S. House member.

On May 5, Judge James R. Browning of the 9th circuit died, at the age of 93. See this story. Judge Browning consistently ruled in favor of the ability of minor parties and independent candidates to gain access for the ballot. In 1985, he wrote the decision in Socialist Workers Party v Secretary of State of Washington, 765 F.2d 1417, which struck down Washington state’s law requiring minor party and independent candidates to poll at least 1% of the vote in the blanket primary, as a condition of appearing on the November ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that in 1986 in Munro v Socialist Workers Party. Judge Browning also voted to strike down California’s ballot access law for newly-qualifying parties, in a case decided in 1976.

Judge Browning was chief judge of the 9th circuit for many years. The 9th circuit courthouse in San Francisco is named for him. Thanks to Howard Bashman for the link.