On August 23, the New Jersey plantiffs in Mazo v Way, 22-1033, filed this Reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue is the New Jersey law that restricts the content of ballot labels for candidates in partisan primaries. The lower courts had upheld the restrictions. The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear this case in late September, but we may not know if the Court is interested until early October.
On August 18, a new lawsuit was filed against the 2021 New York law that won’t let primary voters cast a write-in vote for someone who is not a member of that party. Frentzel v Mohr, w.d., 1:23cv-854.
A somewhat similar lawsuit had been filed earlier in state court, Kowal v Mohr. Although the trial state court struck down the law, the appellate state court reversed and upheld the law. Thanks to Joe Burns for this news. Here is the federal Complaint, which is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge John L. Sinatra.
Last week, Joplin, Missouri businessman-attorney Jared Young announced as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in 2024. See this story. Thanks to Ken Bush for the link.
On Saturday afternoon, September 2, a state court in Florida issued an opinion striking down the state’s U.S. House districting plan. The basis is the Florida Constitution, which says in Article III, section 20, “No plan shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbant; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process…”.
Here is the decision in Black Voters Matter v Byrd, Leon County, 2022-CA-666. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.
On August 31, U.S. District Court Judge Robin Rosenberg, an Obama appointee, issued a six-page order in Caplan v Trump, Florida s.d. 0:23cv-61628. The case had been filed by three voters alleging that Former President Donald Trump should be barred from the Florida 2024 Republican presidential primary, on “insurrection” grounds. The judge ruled that the voters don’t have standing. In support of her conclusion, she cited several cases from the 2008 election, when various voters filed somewhat similar lawsuits to keep former President Barack Obama off the ballot on the grounds that he was not a natural-born citizen. Here is the order.
