Russia held a presidential election March 15-17. The results: Vladimir Putin independent 88.48%; Communist Party 4.37%; New People Party 3.90%; Liberal Democratic 3.24%.
This wikipedia article has the results by region. In Chechnya, Putin received 98.99% of the vote.
On March 18, Geoff Duncan, the former Republican Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, said he will not seek the No Labels presidential nomination. Thanks to Eric Wong for this news.
On March 18, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Stein v Federal Election Commission, 23-771. The lower federal courts had refused to block the FEC from asking Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential nominee in 2016, for some of the funds back. The dispute involved the time period in which a presidential candidate seeking the nomination of several parties can raise private funds that get matched by the government. In the past, if a candidate was seeking the nomination of two parties, the period stopped when the later party decision was made. But in 2016, the FEC changed the rules and said the period ends once the first such political party makes a decision. Stein had been seeking both the Green Party nomination and the Peace & Freedom Party nomination. She now must repay the funds she raised after the Green Party presidential convention but before the Peace & Freedom presidential convention. It was a short period in August 2016, but she happened to have raised a large amount of money during that period.
She is seeking matching funds this year, in her quest for the 2024 Green nomination.
On March 18, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Griffin v New Mexico, 23-279. Coey Griffin had been removed from his elected position as an Otero County, New Mexico commissioner, by a New Mexico state trial court, in 2022. The New Mexico trial court took this action because Griffin had been arreswted for trespassing at the national Capitol on January 6, 2021.
He was barred from holding any future governmental position for life. He had asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to hear his appeal, but it had declined to do so. He then filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, which asked the other side to respond. The U.S. Supreme Court considered whether to hear the case at a conference in February, but took no action. It considered it again this month, and has now rejected it.
On Sunday, March 17, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said he believes New Jersey’s discriminatory ballot format in primaries is unconstitutional, and therefore he won’t let the state intervene in the lawsuit to defend that ballot format. This leaves it to attorneys for most of New Jersey’s counties to defend the law. See this story.
Governor Phil Murphy says he believes the law is constitutional. The case, Kim v Hanlon, 3:24cv-1098, has a hearing on Monday, March 18, before U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi.
All but two New Jersey counties use the same discriminatory ballot format in the general election. The Democratic and Republican Parties have party columns of their own, and their names are prominently at the head of those columns. But all other candidates, independents and the nominees of minor parties, are squeezed helter-skelter into other columns that are labelled “Nomination by Petition.” If the primary ballot access ballot format is held unconstitutional, it should be possible to get reform for the general election ballot format also. Thanks to David Sturrock for the link.
