On January 14, the Missouri Supreme Court issued a decision in Priorities USA v State of Missouri, SC97470. The case involved the state’s law on voters showing certain types of government photo-ID when they vote at the polls. The decision did not say the state can’t have a law requiring photo-ID. But it struck down the part of the law that says voters without the right kind of ID could vote provisionally, if they signed a statement saying that they don’t have proper ID. But the ballot wouldn’t count unless the voter returned later to show the correct kind of ID.

Here is the decision, which was 5-2. Thanks to Election Law Blog for the link.

On January 14, the SAM Party of New York filed a lawsuit against the new law that removes parties from the ballot if they fail to poll at least 130,000 votes for President, or 2% of the presidential vote, whichever is greater. The new law went into effect last year even though the legislature did not pass any bill on this subject. It became law because the legislature empowered a new Commission to write new election laws. Here is the Complaint.

The case is SAM Party v Cuomo, s.d., 1:20cv-323. UDATE: it is assigned to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, a Clinton appointee. It points out that the SAM Party does not desire to nominate anyone for president in 2020. It therefore seeks a ruling that requiring a party to run someone for president in order to retain qualified status violates the U.S. Constitution. The only other states that absolutely require parties to make a certain showing for president, to remain on the ballot, are Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, and Washington. Also Tennessee requires a showing for president in years when no U.S. Senate race is on the ballot. New Mexico law is ambiguous.

Most parties that are ballot-qualified in even a single state tend to want to run someone for president, so no lawsuit like this has ever before been filed.

The new law provides that if any part of it is held unconstitutional, then all of it is void. Thanks to Joe Burns for the news.

The Star News here editorializes against the existing Minnesota ballot access for presidential primaries. It allows the party to be the sole judge of which candidates may be on the ballot.