The U.S. Supreme Court considered whether to hear Watson v Republican National Committee, 24-1260, at its October 17 conference. But the order list of October 20 shows that the Court didn’t decide whether to hear it, and will relist it. This is the case in which the Fifth Circuit had invalidated the state law that says absentee ballots are valid if they arrive within three days of election day. The Fifth Circuit interpreted an 1872 federal law to mean that all ballots must be received by election day. No other court had ever come to that conclusion.

On October 10, a New Jersey state appellate court ruled that Gloucester County cannot use office-group ballots in general elections, and must reprint ballots using a party column format. See this story.

The lawsuit was Gloucester County Republican Committee v Hogan, L1286-25.

New Jersey law lets county clerks design ballots, but the Court said they are constrained by a state law that says a drawing shall be held before every election to determine the order of party columns. This was held to mean that there must be party columns.

Several other New Jersey counties have been using office-group ballots in general elections for years.

Here is what the Gloucester County ballot looked like before the court ruling.

An initiative petition is circulating in Nebraska that would end the practice of letting each U.S. House district elect its own presidential elector. See this story.