On June 29, both houses of the North Carolina legislature appointed members to a conference committee for SB 656, the ballot access bill. Generally they all support the bill. It is likely that they can agree on a version of the bill that can pass both chambers. Although the legislature adjourned early Friday morning without the conference committee report, it will reconvene on August 3 for a single day, and it will be able to vote on bills that have been through a conference committee. Thanks to Kevin Hayes for this news.

This Portland Press-Herald story explains that the Maine ranked-choice voting is still law, given that the bill to repeal it failed. Thanks to Rob Richie for the link.

As already reported, on April 26, the Eighth Circuit ruled that the March petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates is likely unconstitutional unless the state can show that it must have a deadline that early, in order to have time to check the validity of such petitions. Moore v Martin, 15-3558. Therefore, the judges remanded the case back to U.S. District Court to give the state an opportunity to demonstrate its needs. One of the three judges, however, wrote that the deadline is clearly unconstitutional and there is no need for a remand.

Arkansas has decided to appeal this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Its cert petition is due July 25. It is very unusual for a state to ask for U.S. Supreme Court review when it loses a constitutional ballot access case. The last instance was in 2009, when Arizona asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Ninth Circuit opinion in Nader v Brewer, which struck down the Arizona independent presidential petition deadline of June. The Supreme Court denied Arizona’s request. The Arizona legislature then moved that deadline to September, one of the latest such deadlines in the nation.