The Canadian court hearing the Green Party’s request for inclusion in the April 12 and April 14 debates won’t be expedited. See this story. Therefore, even if the Green Party wins the case, the decision won’t be in time to do any practical good this year.
On April 4, the Idaho Senate passed HB 275 unanimously. The bill is now through the legislature. Among other unrelated election law changes, it lowers the number of signatures for an independent presidential candidate from approximately 6,000 signatures, to exactly 1,000. Also it makes it legal for out-of-state circulators to work on an independent presidential petition.
Idaho is the third state in which a bill improving ballot access for minor parties or independents has passed a state legislature so far this year. The others are Nebraska and New Mexico.
On April 4, the Hamilton County, Ohio, Board of Elections voted to appeal the lawsuit over provisional votes to the U.S. Supreme Court. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for the link. As Rick says, if the U.S. Supreme Court accepts this case, it may mean that the U.S. Supreme Court will be required to comment on its own decision in Bush v Gore from 2000. The Court has never referred to its own decision in Bush v Gore in any subsequent ruling, although many lower courts have cited it. It said that states must treat each voter equally.
The Ohio case involves a November 2, 2010 election for a local partisan judicial race in Hamilton County. The two candidates still don’t know who won the election, because the vote is very close and the outcome depends on whether certain provisional votes can be counted. The U.S. District Court and the 6th circuit already ruled that some of them should be counted.
On April 4, the Arizona Senate Rules Committee passed HB 2304. The bill had already passed the House and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Among many other unrelated election law changes, it allows a newly-qualifying party to be on the ballot for the next two elections instead of just one election. Also it legalizes out-of-state circulators for all kinds of petitions.
On April 4, the 7th circuit heard Stone v Neal, 11-1085, a case that challenges the requirement that all candidates for Chicago citywide offices need 12,500 signatures to get on the ballot. The elections are non-partisan.
During the hearing, the attorney for the state government acknowledged that voters may only sign petitions for one candidate in any race. When this case had been in the U.S. District Court, he had asserted that voters could sign for as many different candidates as they wished.
It seems likely that the 7th circuit will send the case back to the U.S. District Court, because the 7th circuit seemed to feel that the U.S. District Court Judge had never made a ruling on whether the law is unconstitutional or not, but had merely denied injunctive relief. The three 7th circuit judges were Michael Kanne, Ilana Rovner, and Diane Sykes.
On April 4, the Libertarian Party filed a notice of appeal in Libertarian Party v D.C. Board of Elections. The issue is whether the D.C. Board must count write-in votes for President in November, for write-in presidential candidates who have filed a declaration of write-in candidacy and a slate of proposed presidential electors.
The U.S. District Court had ruled that the government’s interest in saving time and money overrides the right of a voter to have his or her vote counted. The District Court said the voter’s interest in having a vote counted is a “slight” burden. The District Court did not know that a federal law requires all jurisdictions to report the number of votes received by each legally-qualified candidate for presidential elector to the Federal Archives, because unfortunately the Libertarian Party did not know about this law until after the decision came down. The party’s 2008 candidates for presidential elector in D.C. were legally qualified. They had filed under the procedures that the Board of Elections itself had set up.