On October 18, Jim Norman appealed last week’s Florida state court ruling that removed him from the ballot.  He won the August Republican primary for State Senate in the 12th district, but a Leon County Circuit Court then said his campaign finance reports are dishonest and disqualified him.  See this story.  The story also explains that the Republican Party is making plans to choose a new nominee.

UPDATE:  see this story, which interviews some voters and reveals that many have already voted and cast a write-in vote for Kevin Ambler.  Unfortunately for those voters, those write-ins won’t be counted because Ambler didn’t file a declaration of write-in candidacy by the July deadline (the primary hadn’t even been held yet).  Someone ought to sue to overturn the early deadline for filing as a declared write-in candidate.  Florida has the nation’s earlest such deadline, by far.  In 1979 the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Florida Constitution protects the right of voters to cast a write-in vote.  That case was Smith v Smathers, 372 So.2d 427.

On October 15, the Michigan State Court of Appeals refused to rehear Socialist Party of Michigan v Secretary of State, 299951.  This is the case in which the Socialist Party challenges the Michigan ballot access laws, on the grounds that the state requires almost twice as many signatures to get a newly-qualifying party on the ballot, than it requires votes for an old party to remain ballot-qualified.

The party is likely to appeal to the State Supreme Court.  States in which courts have ruled that the requirements to get a new party on the ballot cannot be tougher than the requirements for an old party to remain ballot-qualified are Ohio (in 1968), Kansas (1982), and Massachusetts (1972).

The October 18 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer has this op-ed by Oliver Hall, explaining why Pennsylvania is the only large-population state this year with a Democratic-Republican ballot monopoly for all statewide offices.