On Sunday, September 6, the U.S. Postal Service filed this appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case over whether postal balloting. This is a combination of U.S. Postal Service v State of California, and Trump v League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, 26A305.
Also on Sunday, the Court asked for a response by September 9.
On September 4, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court removed Andrew Tupone from the November ballot. He had enough valid signatures to be on the November ballot for U.S. House, 7th district. But he used the Green Party ballot label, even though the Green Party (which is not a qualified party) does not recognize him as a bona fide member of the party. See this story.
Here is the Opinion. In the Nomination Paper of Tupone, 366 MD 2026.
This appears to be the first time Pennsylvania state courts have recognized party name protection for an unqualified party. Nothing in the Pennsylvania election code says unqualified parties have such protection for their party name. It is not known if Tupone will appeal.
On September 4, the New Mexico Forward Party filed this request for a stay of the order that denied the party ballot access for its two statewide nominees. New Mexico Forward Party v Toulouse Oliver, 1:26cv-2286. Here is the filing. If the U.S. District Court denies it, something similar will be filed with the Tenth Circuit.
On September 4, the Nebraska Supreme Court refused to invalidate the medical marijuana initiative passed by the voters in 2024. Kuehn v Evnen, S24-901. Certain state officials had tried to invalidate the law on the theory that the initiative did not have enough valid signatures. Here is the opinion.
It is quite unusual for the voters to pass an initiative and then, long after the election, someone tries to show that the initiative should never have been on the ballot. In this case, theplaintiffs (who include the Secretary of State, even though he was also the defendant) argued that some of the notaries public authenticated petition sheets even though the circulator did not actually appear in front of that notary. Also the plaintiffs pointed out that when this had been investigated, some of the notaries public pleaded the Fifth Amendment. The plaintiffs wanted to invalidate all the petition sheets that those particular notaries had worked on, but the Supreme Court agreed with the lower court that it is wrong to invalidate all the sheets.
Late on September 4, Missouri asked the U.S. Supreme Court to restore the U.S. House district boundaries drawn by the 2025 legislature. Hoskins v Van Glahn, 26A304. Here is the filing. It starts by saying, “A federal-election-administration disaster is unfolding in Missouri.” It also says, “No court in American history has ever given such an extraordinary remedy, which inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri.”
The brief’s main point is that the primaries were held under the 2025 districts, so it is unthinkable to have the general election using the older district boundaries.
The brief does not mention at least two instances in the past when courts did invalidate U.S. House district boundaries after the primary was over, and yet the general election was held in new districts. One was in Georgia in 1982, when a 3-judge court in Busbee v Smith struck down the boundaries on August 24, even though the primaries had been held on August 10. The solution in that case was to create a later primary in those two districts and also to delay the general election in those two districts until November 30.
The other instance was in Texas in 1996, when the primary was held on March 12 and the districts were struck down on August 6 in Vera v Bush. The solution was to hold non-partisan primaries for the altered districts in November, with a run-off general election on December 10.
The Republican Party, an intervenor in the case, filed this brief.
Both the state’s brief and the Republican brief assert that all candidates must be nominated in primaries. However, when they quote section 115.339, they don’t include the complete law. They chop off the preliminary phrase, “Except as otherwise provided in this subchapter.” New parties in Missouri nominate by convention.
Both the state’s brief and the Republican brief are contemptuous of the state’s referendum process. They sneeringly say a referendum only requires the signatures of 3.3% of the number of registered voters. The state’s brief says this nine times.
