U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney will hold a hearing in Peace & Freedom Party v Weber on Friday, October 2. This is the lawsuit that challenges the California top-two system.
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Collin Corbett, a former Illinois Republican Party consultant, has filed 37,000 signatures to be an independent candidate for Governor. See this story. He is not the only minor party or independent candidate for Governor who filed, but he seems to be the only one who may survive a petition challenge, if all the gubernatorial petitions are challenged.
It is possible that in 2026, the only states in which the only candidates for any statewide race are Republicans and Democrats will be Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia. Two states, Utah and Washington, don’t have any statewide races this year. Utah will have minor party or independent candidates on the ballot for U.S. House (the office at the top of the ballot), but Washington won’t. New York will have four parties on the ballot but the only statewide candidates will be Republicans and Democrats.
On May 27, Alabama asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the May 26 ruling of a 3-judge U.S. District Court on redistricting. Here is the filing. Allen v Singleton, 25A1315.
UPDATE: the Court has requested the other side to respond by 4 p.m. on Monday, June 1. That means there will be no decision until June 2.
On May 26, Seth Bodnar, former president of the University of Montana, submitted approximately 30,000 signatures to get on the ballot as an independent for U.S. Senate. He submitted signatures from all but four of Montana’s counties. Also he has raised more campaign contributions than any Democrat or Republican who is in the race.
The petition requirement is 12.788.
On May 22, a Massachusetts trial court determined that the City Clerk of Quincy improperly invalidated many signatures on a local initiative. The judge ordered the petition to be re-checked, and this time, even if a signature is illegible, to try to validate the signature by using the voter’s printed name instead. As in almost all jurisdictions, Massachusetts initiative petitions have one column for the voter’s signature, and another column for that voter’s printed name. Perdios v City of Quincy, Norfolk Superior Court, 2582cv-01130.
When the petition had first been checked, the city election employees only looked at the signature column, and ignored the column that contains printed names.