On March 27, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he will not seek the No Labels presidential nomination.
30
On March 27, former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman died at the age of 82. He had been elected to the U.S. Senate as an independent in 2006, and he has been a prominent leader of No Labels. He had also been the Democratic nominee for vice-president in 2000. Thanks to Gene Berkman and Eric Wng for this news.
On March 27, the Third Circuit ruled 2-1 that Pennsylvania may invalidate postal ballots if the voter forgot to fill in the date on the outer envelope, or to put the wrong date or year. Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP Branches v Secretary, 23-3166.
The majority opinion is by Judge Thomas L. Ambro, a Clinton appointee. It is also signed by Judge Cindy K. Chung, a Biden appointee. The dissent, which is as long as the majority opinion, is by Judge Patty Shwartz, an Obama appointee. Here is the Opinion.
The 1964 federal Civil Rights Law has a provision relating to elections. It says no state may prevent someone from voting if he or she makes an error that is not material to whether he or she should be able to cast a ballot. This is known as the “materiality” law. The majority construed that law to only regulates who is allowed to vote, but not to whether the ballot should be counted.
The majority acknowledges that the Pennsylvania requirement is not needed. When ballots are received by the elections office, they are date-stamped, so whether the voter also dated the envelope doesn’t have any practical significance.
On March 26, Idaho Governor Brad Little signed SB 1244, increasing the “no politics” zone around polling places from 100 feet to 250 feet. This new law will harm people who are circulating a petition of any type, because petitioning at the polls is so useful.
On March 20, Arizona’s Republican 2022 nominees for Governor and Secretary of State, Kari Lake and Mark Fincham, had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to expedie consideration of whether to hear their lawsuit on electronic vote-counting machines. A week has passed and the Court still hasn’t acted on the request. Lake v Fontes, 23-1021. The candidates believe the machines are not reliable and they want their case heard in time to alter the 2024 elections.