U.S. District Court Invalidates Pennsylvania Law Requiring Voters to Fill in the Date on Postal Ballots

Posted on by November 23, 2023
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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.

New Political Party Wins Argentine Presidential Election

Posted on by November 23, 2023
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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.

Filing Closes for Florida Presidential Primaries

Posted on by November 23, 2023
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In Florida, the major parties, the only ones who have presidential primaries, have complete control over which candidates appear on the ballot. See this article about the eight Republicans who will be on the Florida Republican presidential primary: Ryan Binkley, Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Donald Trump.

The Republicans let anyone who paid the party $25,000, and who promised to appear at a statewide party rally. Also anyone who did not appear at the rally could get on with $100,000.

First Circuit Says John Anthony Castro Doesn’t Have Standing to Challenge Ballot Access for Former President Donald Trump

Posted on by November 23, 2023
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On November 21, the First Circuit issued an opinion in Castro v Scanlan, 23-1902. Here is the opinion. It says that John Anthony Castro, the Republican presidential candidate from Texas who has been suing to keep former President Donald Trump off various Republican primary ballots, does not have standing.

The decision says that Castro hadn’t even filed for the New Hampshire presidential primary ballot when he filed his lawsuit on September 5. Of course, no one had filed for that primary yet. But the decision then says that even if Castro had filed, he still wouldn’t have standing because his campaign in New Hampshire is so weak.

The decision is by Judge David J. Barron, an Obama appointee. It is also signed by Judges Gustavo Gelpi and Lara Montecalvo, who are Biden appointees. It does not express any opinion about other issues in cases like this. The U.S. District Court had also found that Castro lacked standing, and in addition the U.S. District Court said these type of cases are non-justiciable “political questions”, but the First Circuit didn’t settle that issue.