An official of the Oregon Republican Party has charged that when Green Party gubernatorial nominee Nathalie Paravicini withdrew from the November 2022 ballot, she broke the law. See this story.
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Federal voting rights laws have long held that voters cannot be disenfranchised for making a mistake that is not “material”. In other words, if the error made by the voter is merely technical and does not truly pertain to that voter’s ability to cast a vote, the error should not be used to discard the ballot.
On May 27, 2022, the Third Circuit had used that provision of federal law to allow some ballots to be counted in a Pennsylvania local race held in 2021. Even though certain mail-in ballots did not have the “date” blank filled in by the voter, the Court ruled that the ballots should count. All the arriving ballots had been date-stamped by the receiving election office, so the Third Circuit reasoned that it didn’t really make any difference if the voter had also written in the date the ballot had been mailed.
On June 9, the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to stay the Third Circuit decision, by a vote of 6-3. The dissenters were Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas. But on October 11, the U.S. Supreme Court acted in the case again, ruling that the case is moot and therefore the Third Circuit decision is to be vacated, which is another word for “erased.” So although there is no effect on the 2021 Pennsylvania local election, the precedent is eliminated and the matter will need to be re-adjudicated in the future, because it is bound to recur. The vote on October 11 is 7-2, with Justices Sotomayor and Jackson dissenting. The case is Ritter v Migliori, 22-30.
North Carolina released new registration totals on October 10. For the first time, North Carolina Libertarian registration is above 50,000. The only other state in which the Libertarian Party ever exceeded 50,000 registered voters has been California.
Here are the new totals. The Green Party only has 128 registrants, but that is because when it went off the ballot in November 2020, the state converted all its registrations to independents. When the Green Party got back on the ballot a few months ago, it had to start from zero.
The only other state in which Libertarian registration ever approached 50,000 was Pennsylvania, which had 48,966 at its peak in October 2016. The Pennsylvania voter registration form stopped showing the Libertarian choice after the November 2018 election. Although the state did not disturb the registration status of the Libertarians at that time, the absence from the party as a choice on the form diminished its registration somewhat, and it has about 45,000 currently.
On October 4, U.S. District Court Judge Myron Thompson, a Carter appointee, issued an opinion in Greater Birmingham Ministries v Merrill, m.d., 2:22cv-205. It says that the Alabama Secretary of State must release certain voter registration records to the voting rights group that requested them at cost, instead of using the legal formula that required fees of thousands of dollars. The basis is the federal Voting Rights Act.
Here is the 27-page opinion.
The October 7 print edition of the New York Times has an op-ed by Sarah Vowell, advocating that voters in Montana’s U.S. House, second district, elect an independent candidate, Gary Buchanan. See it here. Buchanan has been endorsed by former Republican Governor Marc Racicot, who is also a former chair of the Republican National Committee.