On April 13, the petitioning candidates who want to be on the ballot for the Montana special U.S. House election filed a brief in the Ninth Circuit. The brief documents that one of the candidates, Thomas Breck of the Green Party, did collect over 400 valid signatures (the counties checked them) on Sunday, April 9, the very day after the U.S. District Court said 400 signatures would be enough.

The Ninth Circuit brief points out how unfair it is for the U.S. District Court to have set the requirement at 400, after it was too late to get the 400 signatures. The case is Breck v Stapleton, 17-35310. A decision could come down at any time. There will be no oral argument in the Ninth Circuit.

On April 13, the Kentucky Libertarian Party and Kentucky Constitution Party filed this reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case is Libertarian Party of Kentucky v Grimes, 16-1034. The issue is Kentucky’s restrictive definition of “political party.” The only way a group can become qualified is to poll a certain share of the vote for President. The only other state with that characteristic is Washington.

This newspaper story says newly-installed Alabama Governor Kay Ivey may call a special U.S. Senate election for this year. She replaced Governor Robert Bentley on April 10. Governor Bentley wouldn’t call such an election.