Here is the story from Semafor.
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Indiana law required candidates running in a political party’s primary election to have voted in the last two primaries for that party or get the permission of his or her’s county chair to run in a primary. John Rust met neither of those criteria, so he sued the state of Indiana in Marion County Court. On Thursday, December 7, 2023, the judge ruled that law to be unconstitutional in violation of the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution.
This ruling does not place Rust on the GOP primary ballot automatically, as petition signatures must be gathered and other requirements met. Still, this is an important victory for the people of Indiana and future candidates for public office.
On December 6, U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and U.S. House member Ayanna Pressley (D-Ma.) introduced bills in each house of congress to provide that ex-felons may vote in all federal elections. Here is the text. The bills don’t have bill numbers yet.
Thanks to Democracy Docket for the link.
On December 7, Utah state officials agreed to accept independent presidential petitions at least as late as March 5. The state filed a stipulation in the lawsuit Maxfield v Henderson, 4:23cv-112. The statutory deadline has been in early January since 2022, although before 2022 the deadline had been in August of election years.
The lawsuit had been filed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and some voters who support him.
On December 7, the Georgia legislature, meeting in special session, passed the bill to redraw U.S. House districts. However, many observers feel the plan does not conform to the court ruling last month, so there will be additional litigation. The final district boundaries may not be known until after the start of the petitioning period (mid-January).