At the Alaska special primary election for U.S. House last month, 4.55% of the ballots were invalid. See this story. The story lays stress on the problem that many ballots lacked the signature of a witness. The law requires two signatures, the voter’s signature plus someone else who witnessed the voter’s signature. In many cases the voter signed the outer envelope but there was no witness signature.

However, many ballots were invalid for other reasons. Some voters voted for more than one candidate, because the publicity about Alaska’s new election system emphasizes that the top four candidates will advance to the general election. Therefore, some voters believe they should vote for up to four candidates in the primary. Thanks to Mark Seidenberg for the link.

On June 28, Jill Stein filed this brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, in her lawsuit over 2016 primary season matching funds. Stein v FEC, 21-1213. The FEC has demanded that Stein repay $175,272. It says the FEC overpaid her and it wants the repayment back.

Stein disputes that she was overpaid. She raises a constitutional challenge to the period during which a minor party candidate is eligible. Generally a presidential candidate seeking the nomination of a party, or various parties, can have the FEC match the money she or he has raised, until after all those nominations are settled. But there is an additional rule that the FEC relies on, that regardless of whether all the relevant minor party nomination contests are settled, the period stops when both the major parties have had their national conventions.

That latter rule was not a problem in 2012, the first year Stein ran. The two major parties had not finished their national conventions until September 6, 2012. That was so late, all the nominations Stein was seeking (Peace & Freedom, Green) had been settled by late August. But in 2016, the two major parties made a drastic change in their national convention dates. Both major parties had finished their national conventions by July 28, 2016, so the FEC disallowed all the money Stein had raised between July 28, 2016, and late August 2016, when the Peace & Freedom convention was over. Stein argues that the major party convention dates should be irrelevant.

There are other, non-constitutional issues in this case also.

On June 30, the People’s Party of Florida asked for reconsideration in its ballot access case, People’s Party of Florida v Florida Department of State, m.d., 8:22cv-1274. The brief is very convincing. It points out that the Florida law, requiring a candidate to have been a registered member of a party for 365 days before filing for office, bans new parties from having any nominees in its first election. This is clearly unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court several times has banned discrimination against new parties, relative to old parties.