On October 26, the Riverside (California) Press-Enterprise endorsed Jeff Hewitt for County Supervisor in Riverside County. Each of the five supervisor districts in Riverside County has almost 500,000 population. Hewitt is a member of the Libertarian Party. The office is non-partisan. No one got a majority in June, and Hewitt is in a run-off against a former Republican state legislator. Here is the endorsement editorial.
This Atlanta Journal Constitution story describes the testimony in U.S. District Court on October 29, in the case over delayed voter registration applications.
On October 29, the voting rights organizations that are suing Georgia over voter registration applications that don’t perfectly match information about the applicant that is already in certain state databases (like drivers license records) filed their reply brief. Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda v Kemp, 1:18cv-4727.
The plaintiffs want the U.S. District Court to rule that voters with this problem, who bring proof of citizenship to the polls, be allowed to vote on a regular ballot, instead of a provisional ballot. Here is the reply brief.
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.
