A New Jersey state trial court will hear oral arguments on August 17 in a case over whether an independent candidate can be disqualified just because he received some write-in votes in a major party primary.  See this story.

New Jersey is one of the few states that allows write-in votes, yet doesn’t have a procedure for a write-in declaration of candidacy.  If New Jersey did have such a procedure, this type of lawsuit would not arise.  The candidate is running for Brielle Borough Council, a partisan office.  He argues that if an independent candidate is considered a “sore loser” just because people cast a write-in ballot for him in a party primary, no candidate would be safe.  The candidate’s enemies could cast write-in votes for the candidate to sabotage him.

On August 10, individuals associated with the Pennsylvania Democratic party filed a challenge to the Green Party’s statewide petition.  The challenge says there aren’t enough valid signatures.  5,000 are required.  See this story.

This is the first time a Pennsylvania Green statewide petition has been challenged for not having enough signatures since 2006.  The party’s presidential nominee was challenged in 2020 but the issue was the paperwork involving substitution, not the number of signatures.

On August 13, a U.S. Magistrate recommended to the U.S. District Court Judge that the judge put Aaron Day on the ballot.  Day is an independent candidate for U.S. Senate.  He was being barred by the Secretary of State because when he filed his declaration of candidacy, his voter registration address wasn’t up-to-date.  The Magistrate agreed with Day that states cannot keep candidates for congress off the ballot for issues related to their voter registration status.  Here is the 22-page recommendation.

UPDATE:  see this story.