On February 7, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court released an explanation for its decision from last week to find that the State Constitution forbids partisan gerrymandering. Here is the majority opinion in League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania v Commonwealth, 159 MM 2017. This is one of the rare times when a state court used a state constitutional provision mandating “free and equal” elections to strike down an unfair election law. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On February 6, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order in North Carolina v Covington, 17A790. The lower 3-judge U.S. District Court had determined that some of the legislative district boundaries represent an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The 3-judge court had hired an expert to draw new boundaries. The state asked the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a stay of the lower court ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court response allows some of the newly drawn legislative districts to be implemented this year, but in certain other districts, the boundaries drawn by the legislature will be used in 2018. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
On February 5, the South Dakota House State Affairs Committee passed HB 1286 by a vote of 8-4. It lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1% of the last gubernatorial vote. It also says that parties with registration of less than 2.5% of the total state registration are free to nominate for all office by convention. Current law says they must nominate by primary if they want to run candidates for Governor, Congress or state legislature. Because it is very difficult for members of small qualified parties to get on their own party’s primary ballot, the freedom for small qualified parties to nominate by convention would be a great help for them.
The Secretary of State backs the bill. Oddly enough, a trial is being held over the South Dakota rules for ballot access for small political parties February 6-7. The case is Libertarian Party of South Dakota v Krebs.
On February 6, the New York Assembly passed AB 8917. It says that in 2018 only, the primary for state and local partisan office will be September 13 instead of September 11. September 13 is a Thursday. New York has consistently avoided holding elections on September 11, ever since 2002.
On February 6, Russian election officials announced that eight candidates will appear on next month’s presidential election. They include incumbent Vladimir Putin, who is the only independent candidate running. The other seven are nominees of various political parties.
In the entire history of the United States, there has never been a presidential election in which more than seven candidates were on the ballot in enough states to be elected. As to the period in U.S. history before there were government-printed ballots, there was never an election in which private ballots were circulated in states containing a majority of the electoral college for more than seven candidates.
