Here is a commentary on the problems of the Top Two voting system in California, with which the Editors of this website and Ballot Access News fully agree.
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Here is a story from Roll Call. The US Supreme Court has upheld the Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals ruling, with a concurring opinion from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that the underlying litigations should be resolved before the 2024 election.
As previously noted, the Minnesota Supreme Court will soon be deciding whether former President Donald Trump should be on the Minnesota March 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot. Growe v Simon, A23-1354.
On October 20, the Minnesota Supreme Court asked both sides to respond to the discovery that in 2012, the Minnesota Supreme Court had a somewhat similar case, filed to keep then-President Barack Obama off the November 2012 Minnesota ballot. The 2012 decision was not published and neither side in the current lawsuit seems to have known about it. In the 2012 case, Oines v Ritchie, A12-1765, the Minnesota Supreme Court kept Obama on the ballot. The challenge had concerned the “natural-born” part of Article II and the citizenship of Obama’s father.
In the 2012 decision, the Minnesota Supreme Court said, “Candidates for president or vice president of the United States are specifically exempted from the requirement of filing an affidavit of candidacy that demonstrates their eligibility for the office sought. Minn. Stat. sec. 204B.06, subd. 4 (2010). Instead, under federal law it is Cngress that decides challenges to the qualifications of an individual to serve as president.”
The 2012 decision also mentions Keyes v Bowen, a California case in the state court of appeals that came to somewhat the same conclusion. Here is the current order from the Minnesota Supreme Court, which includes a copy of the 2012 decision. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.
The Federal Election Commission has updated its chart of presidential primary dates, and congressional primary dates. See it here. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
New Hampshire’s presidential primaries, and Pennsylvania primary dates for all office, are marked as “pending.”
On October 20 Kanye West, also known as Ye, said he won’t run for President in 2024. In November 2022 he had said he would, but now he won’t. See this story.
In 2020, as an independent candidate, he got 70,296 votes.