On Thursday, February 22, 2024, the Plaintiff-Appellees filed a Reply Brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Texas ballot access laws litigation.
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On February 28, a Cook County, Illinois circuit judge ruled that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist and votes for him cannot be counted. It is already too late to remove his name from the ballots for the March 19 primary. The decision has been stayed to give Trump time to appeal. Here is the story from CNN.
The case is Steven Anderson v Trump, 2024 COEL 000013. It is 38 pages and agrees with the analysis of the Colorado Supreme Court. See it here.
The Ohio Libertarian Party is not ballot-qualified, so it is using the independent presidential petition. That petition, which requires 5,000 signatures, is now finished and will soon be submitted to the Secretary of State. Although the Libertarian Party does not know yet whom its national ticket will be, Ohio permits stand-ins on the petition, and the party used stand-ins for both President and Vice-President.
On March 15, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Stein v Federal Election Commission, 23-771. This is the lawsuit over the rules for getting primary season matching funds. Stein received federal matching funds in 2016 in her quest for the Green Party nomination and the Peace & Freedom Party nomination. The FEC says it overpaid her and it wants over $100,000 back. The result hinges on when the primary season matching funds period ended. Stein says it ended when she failed to get the Peace & Freedom nomination. The government says it ended when she got the Green Party nomination. Although there were only a few weeks between those two dates, Stein received a large share of her contributions during that period.
On February 27, the Socialist Equality Party said its presidential nominee this year is Joseph Kishore. Here is a wikipedia article about him. He was also the party’s presidential nominee in 2020. This year his running mate is Jerry White.