On November 20, the Arizona Secretary of State filed this brief in No Labels Party v Fontes, 2:23cv-2172. This is the case over whether anyone may file in the No Labels primary to run for Congress or partisan state office. The law of Arizona says members of any qualified party may file in their own party’s primary. No Labels does not want anyone in Arizona or any other state running for Congress or state office. No Labels filed the lawsuit, seeking a court order to bar candidates from filing in its August 2024 primary for any office.

The Secretary of State’s brief repeatedly stresses that No Labels was free to have placed its eventual presidential nominee on the general election ballot using the independent petition method. Arizona is one of the 25 states that lets independent candidates choose a ballot label other than just “independent”, and the secretary stresses that the No Labels presidential candidate, with the independent procedure, would have been free to have “No Labels” next to his or her name.

On November 20, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced its general election debate dates and locations. All debates will be held at particular colleges.

The dates and cities of the three presidential debates are: September 16 in San Marcos, Texas; October 1 in Petersburg, Virginia; October 9 in Salt Lake City.

The vice-presidential debate is September 25 at Easton, Pennsylvania. See this news story for more details.

On November 24, the Eleventh Circuit issued an opinion in Rose v Raffensperger, 22-12593. The issue was whether Georgia is required by the Voting Rights Act to elect its Public Service Commissioners by district. The state has long elected all five Commissioners in statewide elections. The Eleventh Circuit opinion upholds statewide elections, reversing the U.S. District Court.

Here is the opinion. It is by Judge Elizabeth Branch, a Trump appointee. It is also signed by Judge Britt Grant, a Trump appointee; and U.S. District Court Judge Harvey Schlesinger, a Bush Sr. appointee from Florida.

The ruling is good news for the ability of minor parties to obtain or retain qualified ballot status for statewide office. The Georgia law says a party is ballot-qualified if it polls at least 1% of the number of registered voters for any statewide office, although that status only extends to statewide office. In 2024, there are no statewide races except President and Public Service Commission. If the Commissioners were elected in districts, that office wouldn’t be a statewide office, so the vote test wouldn’t apply to that office. Therefore, without this ruling, a party would need to poll 1% of the number of registered voters for President. Minor parties always poll far higher percentages of the vote for Public Service Commission than for President. For example, the Georgia Libertarian Party has never polled as much as 1% of the number of registered voters for president, except in 2016. No other third party has either, in the period from 1950 to the present, except for the Reform Party in 1996 and the American Party in 1968.

It is not certain that the next Public Service Commission election will be in November 2024, but there will be at least one such election in November 2024, even if the other two seats are filled in a special election sometime sooner than November 2024. There should have been two statewide Commissioners up in 2022, but the election was never held and two commissioners had their terms extended. The Eleventh Circuit opinion does not express any opinion about when the two 2022 seats should be filled.