On April 27, Jill Stein and some members of her campaign team were arrested at a demonstration at Washington University in St.. Louis. See this story.
12
On April 27, the Constitution Party national convention nominated Stephen E. Broden for vice-president. He lives in Texas and was the Republican nominee for U.S. House in 2010, in the Texas 30th district. Here is his wikipedia page. The presidential nominee, who had been chosen earlier in the dat, recommended that the party nominate Broden for vice-president.
Broden is the first African-American nominee for the Constitution Party for either president or vice-president.
On the first ballot, Randall Terry won the Constitution Party’s presidential nomination. Nineteen states had credentialed delegates. The vote was: Randall Terry 144, Joel Skousen 80, Paul Venable 32, Daniel Cummings 4, Samm Tittle 2, Brandon McIntyre 2, total 264. A majority was needed to nominate.
The Constitution Party is on the ballot in twelve states and is petitioning, or about to petition, in additional states. Thanks to Joe Buchman for the news and the tally.
In late 2023, the Ohio Secretary of State determined that the No Labels petition for party status did not have enough valid signatures, even though No Labels had submitted over 100,000 signatures to meet a requirement of 40,345. This is old news but BAN just recently became aware of it.
On April 18, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed HB 1312. Among other things, it says there will be no Public Service Commission elections this year. The state has five commissioners, all elected in partisan statewide elections. They have six-year staggered terms and normally there would be a seat open this year, and in every even year. The rationale for the bill is that a U.S. District Court judge had ruled that the elections had to be in districts, although the Eleventh Circuit then overturned that.
It is somewhat likely that a lawsuit will be filed to reinstate the 2024 election for Public Service Commission, because the State Constitution mandates an election, and there is no good reason why there should not be an election this year for that office.
If the office is not restored to the November 2024 ballot, it will be difficult for the Libertarian Party to retain its status as a party that is ballot-qualified for statewide office. The only other statewide office up this year is President, and the Georgia Libertarian Party has only once polled enough votes for president to retain its status. That was in 2016. The requirement is votes equal to 1% of the number of registered voters, which generally works out to 1.5% of the total vote cast in a presidential election year.
On April 24, a Denver District Court kept Democratic nominee Trisha Calvarese on the ballot in the special election for U.S. House, District 4, set for June 25. Glasser v Griswold, 2024=cv=31103. The challenger had argued that Calvarese should not be on the ballot because she has not been a registered Democrat in Colorado during the twelve months before the party nominated her. Calvarese was a registered voter in Virginia during part of that period, and was a Virginia resident. Virginia doesn’t have registration by party so while she was living there she couldn’t possibly be a registered Democrat.
The state court ruled that she should remain on the ballot. Here is the 19-page decision.