On October 1, the West Virginia Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Republican Party has a right to place a new nominee on the November ballot for Delegate to the House, 35th district, to replace its earlier nominee who had withdrawn in August. Here is the eleven-page opinion, with two concurrences. The case is State ex rel McDavid v Tennant.

As a result, all the ballots for that legislative district must be reprinted, at a cost of $25,000.

Seldom has any court issued such a blistering opinion, criticizing election officials. All the justices feel that the West Virginia law, allowing a party to replace a nominee who had withdrawn, was already very clear. The law does not give an unrestricted right to a candidate to withdraw, but the law says if a candidate is allowed to withdraw, the party of that nominee may replace him or her. In this case, election officials permitted the withdrawal but inexplicably wouldn’t allow a replacement. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.

According to this story, Galveston County is reprinting 5,000 ballots because they erroneously failed to give an independent candidate for County Judge any partisan label on the ballot. The faulty ballots list the independent candidate but give him no label whatsoever. Thanks to Electionline for the link.

On October 2, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Williams-Yulee v Florida Bar, 13-1499. The plaintiff was a candidate for state judge in a Florida election. She sent a mass e-mail to thousands of individuals on lists that she felt might be interested in her campaign, asking for small campaign contributions. She was disciplined because the Florida Bar does not permit candidate for judge to ask anyone for a campaign contribution. Instead, the candidate is supposed to have a campaign manager who makes the request.

Also on October 2, the Court surprisingly agreed to hear Arizona State Legislature v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 13-1314. The Court warned that after the oral argument in this case, it is possible the conclusion will be that the Court should never have taken the case. Article One of the U.S. Constitution says “legislatures” are supposed to write election laws for Congressional elections (unless Congress decides to supercede that power). Arizona has an independent redistricting commission. The Arizona legislature wants the power to draw U.S. House district boundaries, so it sued, arguing that Article One means only legislatures can draw district boundaries.

If the Court rules in favor of the Arizona legislature, that would mean that certain ballot access rules might also be invalid. For example, in Pennsylvania, the state Elections Department set the August 1 petition deadline. The legislature did not set that deadline.