The Libertarian Party lawsuit against certain Maine ballot access laws will have a trial in early March 2021. The issues are: (1) the January deadline for a new party to complete its registration drive and thereby become qualified; (2) the extremely difficult requirements for a member of a small qualified party to get on his or her party’s primary ballot; (3) the irrational law for a party to remain qualified, which requires more than twice as many registrants as the number to get on the ballot in the first place; (4) the law that erases all a party’s registrants when it goes off the ballot. Generally, across the country, when a party goes off the ballot, it retains its registered members.

The U.S. Constitution says in Article II, “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislative thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…”.

On November 27, some Republican voters in Pennsylvania asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Bognet v Boockvar, 20-740. In this case, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had extended the deadline for postal ballots to arrive, beyond the deadline mentioned in statutory Pennsylvania law. The legislative leaders want the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that the word “legislature” in Article II means that state court, federal courts, and even the Governor, have no authority over laws governing presidential elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court already ruled in 2015 that the word “legislature” really means all the entities of state government that have authority to determine state election laws governing congressional elections. That case was Arizona State Legislature v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. Here is the new cert petition. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

Esri Demographics here estimates that if no new states are admitted soon, nine U.S. House seats will be reapportioned. Texas will gain 3. These states would gain one: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon. These states would each lose one: California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

The article also estimates what would happen if either Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia were admitted, and if the size of the U.S. House were not increased.

Assuming that the article is correct about Rhode Island, the Rhode Island ballot access law would then contain an anomaly. The law says candidates for U.S. Senator and Governor each need 1,000 signatures, and that U.S. House candidates need 500. If Rhode Island only has one seat in the coming decade, and the law is not amended, it would be somewhat peculiar that U.S. House, which would become a statewide office, would require only half as many signatures as for U.S. Senate and Governor.

Assuming that Montana increases from one U.S. House member to two, the Montana law can handle the situation with no need for an amendment. Section 13-10-502 says the number of signatures for an independent is 5% of the winning candidate’s vote for the same office in the last election (which is far too difficult). But it also says in case the office hadn’t existed in the last election, the Secretary of State must calculate the new requirement, presumably by imagining that the new district lines had existed in the past election, and calculating theoretical numbers within each district. This is a time-consuming task, and the Secretary of State could save herself trouble if she asked the legislature to amend the petition requirement and impose a flat number of signatures instead of a percentage.