On January 22, the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission rejected a challenge to Former President Donald Trump’s spot on the Republican presidential primary ballot. The Commission said the law does not allow challenges to presidential primary candidates. Here is a link to the ruling. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
The Arizona Secretary of State has released the registration tally as of January 1, 2024. See it here. Percentages are: Republican 34.58%; Democratic 29.55%; Independent and miscellaneous 34.38%; Libertarian .79%; No Labels .63%; Green .06%.
As the October 2023 tally, the percentages had been: Republican 34.33%; Democratic 29.76%; independent and miscellaneous 34.59%; Libertarian .80%; No Labels .45%; Green .08%.
The January 1 tally of election years determines the number of signatures needed for statewide independent candidates, .3% of the number of registered voters who are not in a qualified party. We can now know that the 2024 independent requirement will be exactly 42,303.
No Labels registration is growing so rapidly, it seems very likely that it soon will have enough registrations to remain on the ballot into years beyond 2024. To stay on the ballot a party needs registration of two-thirds of 1% of the state total. Thanks to Eric Wong for the news about the new tally being released.
Not filing a Statement of Economic Interests cost numerous candidates of both the Republican and Democratic parties their ballot access, but the Alabama GOP continues to deny potential primary candidates ballot access due to past support of non-Republican candidates.
On Monday, January 22, Dean Phillips said he will not seek the No Labels presidential nomination, only a day after he implied that he is open to doing that.
Kansas Representative Paul Waggoner (R-Hutchinson) has introduced HB 2516, which would increase the number of signatures needed for a statewide independent from 5,000 signatures to 25,000. If passed, it would take effect this year.
It is believed he introduced the bill because he and some other Republican legislators were upset that a conservative independent qualified in 2022 to run for Governor. The independent, Dennis Pyle, got 20,452 votes. Laura Kelly, the Democratic incumbent, was re-elected by a margin of 31,558 votes.
The bill has a hearing in the House Elections Committee on Thursday, January 25, at 3:30 p.m. Waggoner is vice-chair of that committee.
Arizona lost a lawsuit to No Labels a week ago, and still hasn’t filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit. This strongly suggests the state won’t appeal. The issue was whether No Labels could bar candidates from filing in its primary for congress and partisan state office.
If U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, decides to run for re-election, she could have easily obtained a spot on the general election ballot by filing for the No Labels primary. But given the court decision, that route is blocked.