On May 26, Seth Bodnar, former president of the University of Montana, submitted approximately 30,000 signatures to get on the ballot as an independent for U.S. Senate. He submitted signatures from all but four of Montana’s counties. Also he has raised more campaign contributions than any Democrat or Republican who is in the race.
The petition requirement is 12.788.
On May 22, a Massachusetts trial court determined that the City Clerk of Quincy improperly invalidated many signatures on a local initiative. The judge ordered the petition to be re-checked, and this time, even if a signature is illegible, to try to validate the signature by using the voter’s printed name instead. As in almost all jurisdictions, Massachusetts initiative petitions have one column for the voter’s signature, and another column for that voter’s printed name. Perdios v City of Quincy, Norfolk Superior Court, 2582cv-01130.
When the petition had first been checked, the city election employees only looked at the signature column, and ignored the column that contains printed names.
As already reported, Christopher Getty filed almost 19,000 signatures to appear on the November ballot as an independent candidate for U.S. House, Illinois 4th district. On May 26, the last day to file general election petitions, Byron Sigcho Lopez and Mayra Macias also filed to run for that seat. This post will be amended when I learn how many signatures each of them filed. Sigcho Lopez is a member of the Chicago city council.
UPDATE: a Chicago Tribune story says Sigcho Lopez and Macias each collected approximately 17,000 signatures.
On May 25, the Libertarian Party national committee disaffiliated the New Hampshire Libertarian Party. The main reason was that the New Hampshire Libertarian Party had endorsed Donald Trump for president in the 2024 election.
On May 26, the South Carolina Senate defeated the bill to redraw the U.S. House districts.
