On March 31, Alabama state officials informed the U.S. Supreme Court that they don’t intend to respond to the cert petition in Libertarian Party of Alabama v Merrill, 21-1288. This is the case over access to the list of registered voters. Alabama gives a free list to the qualified parties but charges unqualified parties $35,000 for the list.
On March 28, a North Carolina Superior Court issued an opinion in Carolina Success Initiative v Moore. The vote was 2-1. The majority ruled that the state constitution protects the right to register to vote for ex-felons who have been released from prison. The ruling will permit 70,000 persons to register. See this story. The North Carolina Constitution says “Elections shall be free and equal.” That is the same provision that recently struck down partisan gerrymanders in the state.
On March 29, the Maine legislature passed LD 859, which lets towns use ranked choice voting for their own elections. The vote in the Senate was 18-13. In the House, it was 69-63. Thanks to Fairvote for this news.
On March 30, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris approved the settlement in Green Party of Montana v Jacobson, 6:18cv-87, that puts the party on the ballot for 2022. There are no partisan statewide offices up in Montana this year, and filing for the Green Party June primary has already closed. But before the filing deadline, two candidates filed to run for the State House, so presumably they will be on the ballot this year.
It isn’t clear if the party will also be on the ballot in 2024. The law says if a party polls 5% of the winning gubernatorial candidate’s vote for any statewide office, at either of the last two elections, it is a qualified party. But there are no statewide offices on the ballot in 2022, so there is no method for the Green Party to meet the vote test in 2022. In some states, when there is no statewide office up, all parties automatically have their qualified status extended. The issue has never arisen in Montana.
Max Longley has this intriguing account of the beginning of government-printed ballots in New York state in the 1890’s decade. The first such bill was vetoed by the Governor, because he was a partisan Democrat and he thought the new idea would make it too easy for voters to form new parties! It turned out to be the opposite. The title is “The Australian Ballot versus voting rights – why didn’t they warn us?”
