On December 21, U.S. District Court Judge Irene C. Berger, an Obama appointee, dismissed John Anthony Castro’s lawsuit on whether Donald Trump should be on the West Virginia Republican presidential primary ballot.  Castro v Warner, s.d., 2:23cv-598.  Here is the decision.

No one is yet on the West Virginia Republican primary ballot, which will be held May 14.  Castro asserted that he will be on the ballot.  The decision assumes that is true, but says because his campaign is so weak, he doesn’t have standing.  Castro has appealed to the Fourth Circuit.

The nation’s worst ballot access law, by far, is Georgia’s law on how a candidate gets on the general election ballot for U.S. House if the candidate is not the nominee of a party that got 20% of the vote in the last presidential or gubernatorial election.

The law, passed in 1943, requires a petition of 5% of the registered voters.  In practice, this has proved so difficult that no third party candidate has ever done it, and no independent has done it since 1964, when details of the petition requirement were far easier than they are now.

The Georgia Libertarian Party sued to overturn this law in 2017, and the case is still pending.  The party lost on the First Amendment issues in the Eleventh Circuit after it had won on those issues in the U.S. District Court.

Last year, the party also lost on the Equal Protection issues in U.S. District Court, but the court made a clear error on procedure and on December 4, 2023, the party requested a rehearing, which is still pending.  Cowen v Rafflesperger, n.d., 1:17cv-4660.

On December 5, the Ohio House Government Oversight Committee heard HB 210, to change Ohio from an open primary state to a closed primary state.  The only two witnesses in favor were the two sponsors, Representatives Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester) and Gary Click (R-Vickery).

According to this news story, the bills did not get a very favorable review from committee members.