On December 10, individuals who wish to petition at the polls in Wyoming filed this brief in the Tenth Circuit in Frank v Lee, 21-8060. This is the case against Wyoming’s 300-foot zone around polling places. Inside the zone no petitioning is allowed.
The U.S. District Court had struck down the zone, and the state had then appealed. Although the U.S. Supreme Court and various other courts have upheld 100-foot zones, no other court has ever approved a larger zone.
On December 14, the Georgia Libertarian Party filed this Reply Brief in Cowen v Georgia Secretary of State, 21-13199. The reason the Libertarian Party is able to file one more brief is that both sides are contesting some aspect of the U.S. District Court decision.
This case concerns the 5% petition for district office, for Georgia independent candidates, and the nominees of parties that didn’t poll as much as 20% of the vote for president in the entire nation, or 20% for Governor, in the last election. The U.S. District Court struck down the petition, but imposed a 1% petition to replace it, combined with a filing fee.
Although the Libertarian Party is pleased that the 5% petition was struck down, it is unhappy that the judge imposed her own difficult interim requirement. This new brief is to present the Libertarian case against the interim relief.
The hearing is Friday, December 17, in Atlanta.
On December 13, a New Jersey state trial court ruled that the Bergen County Republican Party held its election of officers on a date that is too early, and therefore the election is invalid and the officers are unseated. See this story.
On December 6, a Nevada voter, Nathaniel Helton, filed a lawsuit in state court to block an initiative that recently started to circulate for a top-five primary system. Helton v Nevada Voters First PAC, First Judicial District Court, Carson City, 21oc-001721B. See this news story, which has a link to the Complaint. Thanks to Fairvote for the link.
The lawsuit charges that the initiative violates the single-subject rule, because it eliminates party nominees, and it also provides for ranked choice voting in general elections. The lawsuit also charges that the Nevada Constitution requires initiatives that cost money to identify a funding source, and that the initiative fails to identify a new funding source.
There are approximately eight lawsuits against the Texas U.S. House and state legislative district boundaries, mostly in federal court. But from the filings so far, it appears the plaintiffs will not seek a postponement of the March 2022 primary. Instead, if they prevail, they will probably depend on past Texas precedents when the boundaries of many districts changed after that year’s primary was over. In those cases, the primary results for the districts whose boundaries changed were set aside. Instead, candidate filing re-opened in those districts, and the winners were determined in November as though they were special elections. In Texas special elections, there are no party nominees. Everyone runs in the election, and if no one gets 50%, there is a run-off.
In 1996 in Texas, 13 of the U.S. House districts (out of 30 districts) used the special election procedures. The boundaries of the 1990’s districts had been changed after the 1996 primary by a federal court. Someone got over 50% in November in most of those districts. In the three districts in which no one got 50% in November, there was a run-off on December 10, 1996. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
