Detroit voted for Mayor on August 4, 2009, using a non-partisan election. D’Artagnan Collier campaigned as the nominee of the Socialist Equality Party, and polled 1.4% of the vote in a six-candidate field.

Although this is a modest percentage, it is the highest percentage that any candidate for Mayor of Detroit, who was sponsored by any socialist party, has received since 1951. Among the parties that have run candidates for Mayor of Detroit since World War II are the Socialist Workers Party (which last ran in 2001), the Workers League (predecessor party to the Socialist Equality Party), and the Revolutionary Workers Party. In 1951 the Socialist Workers Party candidate had received 1.6%.

On August 5, the Tucson, Arizona, city council voted 5-1 to sue the state, over the new law that requires the city to use non-partisan city elections. See this article.

All three briefs have now been filed in the 5th circuit in Libertarian Party v Dardenne, the case over whether the Louisiana Secretary of State acted improperly when he kept Bob Barr and Brian Moore off the November 2008 ballot for president (Brian Moore was the Socialist Party nominee). The case is being handled for the political parties by Law Professor Mark Brown, who is an expert on the question of why the U.S. Constitution, Article II, does not permit any authority except state legislatures from creating rules that keep anyone off the ballot for president.