The Virginia Republican Party has dropped its requirement that voters who vote in the March 6 Republican presidential primary must first sign a statement promising to vote for the Republican nominee in November. See this story. This is good news for Ron Paul, who will be one of only two names on the ballot (a ballot that contains no write-in space). There is no Democratic presidential primary in Virginia this year. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
On January 17, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted ordered that William M. O’Neill be placed on the Democratic primary ballot for Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, even though the counties who had checked O’Neill’s petitions had said he had only 993 valid signatures. 1,000 are required. Husted independently examined some of the supposedly invalid signatures, and determined that at least seven of them were valid. See this story.
Husted acknowledged that adding O’Neill’s name to the March 6 ballot would cause some inconvenience to certain counties that had already begun preparations for printing and mailing ballots. The Virginia presidential primary, and the Ohio primary, are on the same day, March 6.
On January 12, American Third Position announced that it had nominated its first candidates for President and Vice-President. They are Merlin L. Miller for President and Virginia Deane Abernethy, both of whom live in Tennessee. Thanks to Independent Political Report for this news. The party is not now ballot-qualified in any state.
Miller is an independent film maker and Abernethy is a retired professor of psychiatry and anthropology. Abernethy was born in Cuba, but presumably her parents were U.S. citizens. See here for more information about her.
On the afternoon of January 17, the 6th circuit heard oral arguments in Kurita v The State Primary Board of the Tennessee Democratic Party, the case over whether a political party that holds a primary may set aside the results of that primary and award the nomination to the person who came in second. The dispute arose in 2008. See this story, which has information about what each side in the lawsuit said today, but doesn’t seem to try to predict which way the 3 judges seemed to be leaning. The three judges are Ronald Gilman and Eric Clay, Clinton appointees, and Alice Batchelder, a Bush Sr. appointee.
New York still doesn’t know when its primary for office other than President will be held this year. See this story from the Utica Observer-Dispatch. It is surprising that the U.S. District Court in Albany still hasn’t issued a ruling, setting the primary date.
