New York is holding a special election on November 3, 2009, to fill the vacant U.S. House seat. According to this article in the Syracuse Post-Standard of October 4, it is very likely that a substantial number of overseas military will not be able to have their vote counted in this election. A spokesperson for the Overseas Vote Foundation predicts that the federal government will soon sue New York again over this issue.
On October 3, Brett McClafferty, who is age 21, said he will drop his lawsuit to overturn a city ordinance that requires candidates to be at least age 23 to be on the City Council. He had filed it on September 24, 2009. The Streetsboro, Ohio election is on November 3, 2009, and early voting had already started by the time of the first hearing in the case. U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Lioi had already ruled she would not stop early voting. The case was McClafferty v Portage County Board of Elections. See this story. Thanks to Carter Momberger for the link.
On October 3, the South Dakota Democratic Party held a meeting in Chamberlain, and voted to let independent voters vote in Democratic Party primaries.
In 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that if parties wish to allow independents to vote in their primaries, that is their choice, regardless of what state election law says. That case is Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S. 208. South Dakota election law already acknowledges that parties may invite independents into their primaries, but no South Dakota party has previously done this.
As noted earlier, a federal court in Idaho ruled that the lawsuit filed by the Republican Party, over whether the party has a right to a close its primary to non-Republicans, cannot proceed without evidence that non-Republicans have been voting in Republican Party primaries. The party now says it will commission field research to gather evidence on what types of people voted in its May 2008 primary. Both sides in the lawsuit seem to agree that the lawsuit will take quite a while to resolve, and that the case will not be decided in time to alter the May 2010 primary.
Idaho is one of the 21 states in which the voter registration form does not ask people which party, if any, they are joining. Thus, on primary day, any voter in Idaho is free to decide which party’s primary to vote in.
Lawsuits over the identity of the actual officers of the national Reform Party have been in almost continuous existence since 2004. One case, in federal court in New York, is still active. It is Frank MacKay v Kay Allison Crews, in the eastern district, 2:09-cv-2218.
On October 1, 2009, the Defendants, who include the national party officers chosen at a convention in Texas in 2008 under the supervision of a court-appointed receiver, filed a brief to dismiss the case. The national officers chosen in the 2008 Texas convention are David Collison, chair; Rodney Martin, vice-chair; Janelle Skinner-Weill, secretary; and Beverly Kennedy, treasurer.
The existing case in New York was first filed in State Court, in 2008, on behalf of Frank MacKay, who had been elected National Chair at a different national convention, held in Sacramento, California. The New York state judge had issued an Temporary Restraining Order on May 28, 2008, and a Temporary Injunction on July 17, 2008, to stop the national convention in Texas. However, the Texas convention was held anyway. The Texas defendants in the New York state case transferred the New York case to federal court on May 27, 2009, and that case is now proceeding.
