This article has a number of interesting and useful links, including the appellate brief to the Colorado Supreme Court and the tweet about it from J. Michael Luttig, former Judge on the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Mr. Binkley is the “surprise candidate” in this story.
On November 21, U.S. District Court judge Susan P. Baxter, a Trump appointee, struck down a Pennsylvania election law that says postally mailed ballots are invalid if the voter forgets to fill out a blank on the outer envelope with the date, or if the voter gets the date wrong. Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP v Schmidt, w.d., 1:22cv-339. Here is the opinion.
The plaintiffs won under the Materiality Provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That provision says voters cannot be deprived of their vote if the reason for invalidating their vote is an error that has not actual impact on election administration. The plaintiffs argued that the blank line on the outer envelope, on which the date should have been inserted, is not actually useful. The county election office date-stamps all the ballots as they arrive.
This case was filed in 2022 and attracted an amicus from the Republican National Committee in defense of the state law. The same issue had also been thrashed out in state court last year.
On November 19, Argentina held a run-off presidential election. Javier Milei, nominee of the Libertad Avanza, won with 55%. In the initial round, he had placed second in a five-candidate field with 30%. See the wikipedia article on the election.
Libertad Avanza (Liberty Advances) was running in its first presidential election. It had been formed in 2019 and contested the legislative elections that year.
Other nations in which a new party elected its presidential nominee in recent years have been Ukraine, France, and Mexico.
In the United States, one must go all the way back to 1860 to find an instance when a new party won a presidential election, and even then, the Republican Party was six years old when it won its first presidential election.
On November 20, the Federal Election Commission updated its list of 2024 primary dates, including both presidential primaries and congressional primaries. See it here. Thanks to Eric Wong and Thomas Jones for the link.