The National Committee of the Democratic Party is fighting to overturn the Arizona law on the order of candidates on the general election ballot. Arizona law puts the nominees of the party that won the last gubernatorial race (within each county) on the top line of the ballot.

On September 13, the Democratic Party filed this two-page letter brief, explaining that the fact that the party had lost its West Virginia case on September 1, on the same issue, should not control the Arizona case.

In 2020, the Democratic Party had filed lawsuits against six states that were putting Republican nominees on the ballot above Democratic nominees. So far the party had lost all of them, except the Arizona case is still alive. The other states, besides West Virginia, were Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Minnesota. The Democratic Party briefs in these cases consistently weaken their own case, by always arguing that any relief should only apply to major parties, and not minor parties or independent candidates.

As reported here earlier, on September 2 Jason Gonzales asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Gonzales v Madigan, 21-352. This is the case in which Gonzales charged that his Democratic primary opponent, Illinois speaker Michael Madigan, in 2016 had recruited two candidates with Hispanic surnames to enter the primary for State House in their contest, so as to split the Hispanic vote. These were two individuals who had no interest in running for the state legislature, and merely filed to assist Madigan. Although this situation may seem an odd reason for a lawsuit, there had been a Seventh Circuit precedent in 1974 that said recruiting “sham” candidates violates the U.S. Constitution. Illinois is in the Seventh Circuit. Nevertheless, Gonzales lost his case in the lower federal courts.

Madigan wasted no time in telling the U.S. Supreme Court that he would not bother to file a response to the Gonzales cert petition; he said so on September 7. Of course, if the U.S. Supreme Court wants a response from Madigan, they can ask for it, and in that case of course Madigan would respond.

On September 17, a three-judge panel of a North Carolina Superior Court in Raleigh invalidated the state’s photo ID law for voters. Holmes v Moore, 18 CVS 15292. Here is the opinion. The vote was 2-1. The basis was that the law has a racially discriminatory effect. The law would have survived if it had included more forms of photo ID. Thanks to the Election Law Blog for the link.