As already noted, on January 29, the Ninth Circuit heard 35 minutes of oral argument in Arizona Libertarian Party v Bennett, 13-16254. The issue is the Arizona paper voter registration form, that lists only the two largest parties and gives each of them a checkbox. Anyone who wishes to register into any other party, even though it is qualified, must write-in the choice in the “other” box. Before 2011, the part of the form asking about choice of party just had a blank line.

Here is a link to the oral argument, from the Ninth Circuit’s web page. The attorney for the government seemed to contradict himself when, on the one hand, he argued that forcing applicants to write-in the names of some parties is a very minor burden; but on the other hand he quoted from a U.S. Supreme Court opinion Timmons v Twin Cities Area New Party which said that states have an interest in a “healthy” two-party system and they can write laws that discriminate against other parties.