On October 29, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Turzai v Brandt, 17-1700. This was the case in which Republican legislative leaders in Pennsylvania had tried to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to undo the State Supreme Court’s redrawing of the U.S. House districts. The Republican legislative leaders had filed the cert petition on June 21, and it had been on the October 26 conference. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
In 2017, an independent resident of North Carolina, Michael Crowell, filed a federal lawsuit against the law that said only Democrats and Republicans could ever serve on the State Board of Elections, or a county board of elections. The case has been on hold for over a year, because the state policy keeps changing. A new proposal to include one person on the state board who is not a member of either party was passed by the legislature, but then declared unconstitutional on separation of powers grounds.
On October 15, Crowell asked the court to let the case go forward now. He asserts that even if North Carolina ends up allowing a single non-major party member to serve, that is still not constitutionally sufficient. Here is his brief, which has a useful summary of all the action in state court over the makeup of the State Board.
On October 25, the New York Reform Party filed a lawsuit in state court over this year’s ballot format inside New York city. See this story, which has a photo of the ballot. The ballot outside New York city is different, and this lawsuit only challenges the New York city format. Thanks to Frank Morano for this news.
On October 22, the Virginia Board of Elections filed this brief in the Fourth Circuit in Fitzgerald v Alcorn, 18-1111. The issue is the Virginia law that says incumbent office-holders who are running for re-election may dictate to their party whether to use a primary or a convention in that particular race. The U.S. District Court had invalidated the law. The state is mostly arguing that the case is procedurally flawed.
Voters in Texas who use the straight-ticket device are sometimes finding that the device doesn’t work. This year, some voters who push the Republican straight-ticket button end up casting no vote for U.S. Senate. And some voters who push the Democratic button end up voting for Ted Cruz, Republican, for U.S. Senate. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
As the story says, this is the last year the device is being used in Texas. The legislature repealed it in 2017 but made that change effective after the 2018 election is over. The story does not say, but it could have said, that voters this year should simply not use the device.
