On November 6, the voters of Florida passed an initiative, restoring voting rights to most ex-felons, but not all of them. Under the initiative, certain crimes still prevent ex-felons from registering, such as murder and violent sex crimes. On November 20, the Eleventh Circuit asked both sides in the pending lawsuit Hand v Scott whether any plaintiffs still have any voting rights problem.

The lawsuit challenges the old law and the arbitrary rules concerning ex-felons asking the Governor to restore their voting rights. Both sides must respond by December 5, Wednesday.

The Utah State Elections office has ruled that when a party submits a party petition, it is automatically on for the next two elections, not just one election. This means that the Green Party is still ballot-qualified in Utah.

The law is quite clear that when a party meets the vote test, it gets the next two elections. But it had not been clear as to whether a petition also yields the next two elections. The Green Party did not do the party petition in Utah in 2016, but it did it during 2017, for the 2018 election. At the 2018 election, it did not poll enough votes to meet the 2% vote test. But the new ruling allows it to also be on for 2020. It is much easier for parties to meet the vote test in presidential years, because all the statewide state offices are up in presidential years. Thanks to Charles Sherrouse for this news.

On November 30, all the full-time judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, heard Libertarian National Committee v Federal Election Commission. This is a challenge to the federal campaign law that won’t let donors leave large bequests to political parties and have that money available to those parties when that donor dies. According to this news story, many of the judges did not seem to believe that the law is unconstitutional.