On April 18, the West Virginia Constitution Party filed a federal lawsuit to get access for its petitioners to work in Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park. The case is Constitution Party of W.V. v Jezioro. The party is represented by the Rutherford Institute. State officials barred petitioning from last year’s National Hunting and Fishing Day festivities at that park, and the party hopes to prevent that from happening again.

The party has 11,000 signatures on its statewide petition, which carries the name of stand-in candidates for president and vice-president, and the party’s gubernatorial candidate. Since the petition requires 15,118, the party will probably be unable to complete the petition by the May deadline that applies to non-presidential candidates. The petition won’t be wasted, because it can still be used for president if it is finished by August 1. West Virginia irrationally requires petitions for office other than president to be submitted in May, but presidential petitions are due much later. A party remains on the ballot if it polls 1% for Governor, though, so it is a disappointment of the party can’t qualify for the gubernatorial race.

The same outcome affected the Libertarian Party in 2004 in West Virginia. It got on the ballot for president, but not Governor. The party filed a lawsuit in 2004 to challenge the May deadline, in state court, but the State Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

A spate of news articles on April 27 cover Rush Limbaugh’s recent boasts that he has influenced many Republicans to re-register as Democrats, in order to boost Hillary Clinton’s vote and thereby injure the Democratic Party. Here is an article from the San Francisco Chronicle. Although there is little evidence, the evidence that exists is significant. For example, an exit poll from Pennsylvania showed that 41% of the self-identified Republicans who had registered Democratic to vote in this month’s primary, and who had voted for Hillary Clinton, also said they would not be supportive of her in the general election.

This is a fertile field for political science and journalistic research, and it may influence court decisions when the constitutionality of open primaries is challenged by political parties.

The Constitution Party’s vice-presidential candidate is Darrell Castle, an attorney from Memphis, Tennessee. He won the nomination on the first ballot. The key factor in his victory was that presidential nominee Chuck Baldwin asked the convention to choose Castle. Also, Mary Starrett told the convention that she didn’t want the vice-presidential nomination.