On April 25, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Libertarian Party of Alabama v Merrill, 21-1288. This is the case over the Alabama law that gives the list of registered voters free to qualified parties, but charges an unqualified party that is petitioning $37,000 to get the list.

In 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court had summarily affirmed a U.S. District Court decision that said just the opposite. This is one more example of the Court back-tracking on its older favorable precedents. It also continues an unbroken 31-year habit of rejecting all election law cert petitions filed by a minor party or an independent candidate.

No Democrat will be on the ballot for U.S. House from South Dakota this year. See this story. Democrats didn’t run for the seat in 2020, either. In 2020, in a two-person race, the Libertarian nominee for U.S. House, Randy Luallin, polled 75,748 votes, 19.04%. Libertarians in South Dakota nominated by convention on April 23, and nominated Collin Duprel for U.S. House. The party has nominees for eleven federal and state offices.

The Fourth Circuit will hear Cawthorn v Amalfi, 22-1251, at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, May 3. This is the case over whether North Carolina election officials may hold administrative hearings on whether Congressman Madison Cawthorn meets the qualifications to run for Congress. Cawthorn had filed this lawsuit to stop such proceedings, and he had won in U.S. District Court. That Court had ruled that no one can be challenged on 14th Amendment grounds (relating to “insurrection”) because in the 19th century, Congress granted a blanket amnesty to all persons in the past and the future. The U.S. District Court had also ruled that the North Carolina voters who are challenging Cawthorn cannot intervene in Cawthorn’s lawsuit.