On July 17, U.s. District Court Matthew Kacsmaryk refused to let Veterans for All Voters intervene in Hunt v State of Texas, n.d., 2:25cv-200. This is the lawsuit in which the Texas Republican Party argues that it has a right to a closed primary. Veterans for All Voters wanted to intervene in the case to support the existing open primary law. But the judge said that the Texas Secretary of State is already defending the law, so there is no need for interention. Veterans for All Voters had argued that the Secretary of State might leave her position soon, but the judge said that is speculative. The case is unusual because the Secretary of State is defending the existing open primary law, but the Texas Attorney General is on the side of the Republican Party and is refusing to defend the law.

Here is a newspaper story about the New Mexico Forward Party’s ballot access lawsuit.

The story is inaccurate when it says the party’s statewide nominees needed 7,123 signatures each. The law plainly says that they each needed 14,246 signatures.

Here is a link to President Trump’s speech of July 16. It lasts 26 minutes.

Trump is correct that U.S. election procedures are faulty, but he did not mention the true faults. One fault that gets no publicity, but is absolutely true, is that some states won’t tally write-in votes even for declared write-in candidates. There is no principled defense for the policies of those states. Write-in votes for presidential candidates who have filed a declaration of write-in candidacy are valid votes, yet election officials refuse to tally them just to save trouble and expense. This is a problem in the District of Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Virginia.