On September 21, a Republican nominee for Trumbull County (Ohio) Common Pleas Judge filed a federal lawsuit to get on the November ballot. The Republican Party county central committee chose her because this is a special election. She was then kept off the November ballot because she is a “sore loser”, but she is only a “sore loser” because she was running for a different judicial post in the May 2022 primary.

The case is Kovoor v Ohio Secretary of State, s.d., 2:22cv-3468. Unless her lawsuit succeeds, the only candidate on the November ballot will be the Democratic nominee. Here is her Complaint. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge James L. Graham, a Reagan appointee.

The plaintiff, Sarah Kovoor, already lost a similar lawsuit in Ohio Supreme Court on September 19. That case was State ex rel Trumbull County Republican Central Committee v Trumbull County Board of Elections. Here is the Ohio Supreme Court decision.

On September 21, the U.S. House passed HR 8873, the “Presidential Election Reform Act”, by 229-203. All Democrats voted for it. Nine Republicans voted for it: Liz Cheney (Wyoming), Tom Rice (South Carolina), Adam Kinzinger (Illinois), Fred Upton (Michigan), John Katko (New York), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), Chris Jacobs (New York), Peter Meijer (Michigan), and Jaime Herrera Beutler (Washington).

None of the Republicans from the top-two states voted for it, except Congresswoma Beutler.

Here is the text.

On September 20, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the state to print the name of an independent candidate on the November ballot. The candidate, Terpsehore P. Maras, is running for Secretary of State. State ex rel Maras v LaRose, 2022-1083. Here is the Opinion.

The requirement is 5,000 signatures. The various counties had verified 5,010 signatures originally, and later they found some more valid signatures and notified the Secretary of State’s office of their last-minute discoveries. But the Secretary of State refused to accept the supplemental signatures. Also he determined that some of the signatures had been validated in error, and he found there were only 4,993 signatures.

The Court said the Secretary of State should have accepted the last-minute additional signatures.

The Supreme Court vote was 4-2. The dissesnters did not disagree with the findings about the number of signatures, but felt that the court papers had technical errors and therefore that the Court should not have accepted the case.

As a result of the court decision, the only states with no statewide minor party or independent candidates in November 2022 are California and Kentucky. As to the states that don’t have any statewide offices up this year, all of those states have at least one minor party or independent candidate for US House on the ballot. In those states that is the office at the top of the ballot.