The California Assembly Rules Committee has not sent ACA 16 to any committee, even though the measure was introduced on June 20. ACA 16 is the proposed constitutional amendment to repeal the top-two system.
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On August 2, the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion in Hero v Lake County Election Board, 21-2793. The issue was whether election officials had the right to exclude a Republican candidate for local office from the primary ballot, which they did because the party objected to his past support for independent candidates. The opinion says the plaintiff was always free to run as an independent candidate.
This outcome is surprising. The Seventh Circuit had never before issued any opinion giving political parties this much power. The Ninth Circuit has rejected similar lawsuits in the past. The Eleventh Circuit had upheld the right of the Republican Parties of Florida and Georgia to exclude David Duke from its presidential primaries, and the Eighth Circuit had upheld the right of the Republican Party to exclude Rocky De La Fuente from its 2020 presidential primary, but there are no similar circuit decisions that relate to primaries other than presidential primaries.
In November 2022, Maryland voters will see six candidates for Governor on their ballots, the most since 1938. The 2022 election includes the nominees of all five qualified parties: Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, and Working Class. Also there is an independent candidate on the ballot, Kyle Sefcik. He needed 10,000 valid signatures by the August 1 deadline.
In 1938 there were seven candidates on the ballot for Governor of Maryland. Ballot access was made more difficult in Maryland in 1941, and made more difficult again in 1957, and then made really difficult in 1967. But it was eased in 1998 by lobbying, and then eased some more in 2003 with a winning lawsuit in state court.
On August 3, law professor Anthony Schutz, an expert on the Nebraska Constitution, and Steven R. Dunbar, a mathematician, filed this amicus curiae brief in Eggers v Evnen in the Eighth Circuit, case no. 22-2268. The issue is the county distribution requirement for statewide initiatives. The brief demonstrates objectively that the county distribution requirement gives more power to voters in low-population counties than those in other counties.
This Axios story explains the various lawsuits challenging voting procedures in Georgia, including the case that challenges the statewide Public Service Commissioner elections. The plaintiffs argue that the Voting Rights Act requires Georgia to elect this office in district elections, not statewide elections.
The Axios story does not mention the Libertarian Party ballot access lawsuit, which is in the U.S. Supreme Court, although the Court won’t decide whether to hear it or not until late September or even later. On August 4, the Georgia Secretary of State informed the U.S. Supreme Court that the state doesn’t plan to respond, unless of course the Court asks for a response.