The Columbus Dispatch has this story about the new lawsuit filed by the Ohio Libertarian Party in State Supreme Court. The new lawsuit notes that Gary Johnson received more than 3% of the vote for president in Ohio last month. The suit is based on a part of the election code that says a group of voters who sponsor a presidential candidate who gets more than 3% can establish a new ballot-qualified party.

The story is somewhat flawed, because the reporter apparently did not contact the Libertarian Party to ask for a response to the Secretary of State’s comment on the lawsuit. The Secretary of State says the existing procedure for establishing a party has been upheld. But that is irrelevant; the new lawsuit is not about the petition requirement, but the alternate vote method. Also the Secretary of State says that the attorney for the Libertarian Party already conceded in another lawsuit that what the party is asking for is not valid. It is true that the party’s brief in another case suggested that the vote test method for a new group is unlikely to be recognized by the Secretary of State, but that brief said nothing further on that subject.

Section 3517.01 says, “A political party within the meaning of Title 35 of the Revised Code is any group of voters which, at the last preceding regular state election, polled for its candidate for nominees for presidential electors at least 3% of the entire vote cast…”. The sentence then goes on to say that a second method to establish a party is a 1% petition. The party depends on the first clause, not the second clause. The Johnson petition listed five voters who held themselves out as representing that petition, and it is they who are claiming that they meet the standard in the first clause. Another document, filed by the Libertarian Party, certifies that the individuals who filed the petition have permission to use the name “Libertarian Party” for their group. The law does not say that the first method requires a party label on the petition.

Ever since the Commission on Presidential Debates was formed in 1987, it has been co-chaired by a past chair of the Republican National Committee, and a past chair of the Democratic National Committee. However, with no public announcement, recently Michael McCurry, the co-chair who had earlier been Democratic National Committee chair, resigned.

He was replaced with Dorothy Ridings, who was president of the League of Women Voters thirty years ago. This article at presidentialdebatenews.com has more details. The article also says many directors of the CPD have resigned in the last few months. Thanks to Independent Voters Network for the link.

On December 21, the Hawaii Democratic Party asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Democratic Party of Hawaii v Nago. This is the case in which the Democratic Party argues that it cannot be forced to choose its nominees in a primary in which any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot. The U.S. District Court, and the Ninth Circuit, had both ruled that the party’s lawsuit fails because there is no evidence that the open primary injures the party. Here is the cert petition.

The party argues that it is virtually impossible to prove the harm. On primary day each voter’s decision as to which primary ballot to choose is secret, the Democrats have no means of proving that people loyal to the Republican Party are voting in the Democratic primary.

Also on December 21, the Republican Party of Montana, and several county Republican Parties in Montana, filed a similar cert petition. Because both Hawaii and Montana are in the Ninth Circuit, and because the Hawaii and Montana cases are virtually identical, after the Hawaii Democratic Party lost the case in the Ninth Circuit, it disposed of the Montana Republican case summarily. It is clear that the attorneys for both the Hawaii Democratic Party and the Montana Republican Party worked together on their cert petitions. The Montana cert petition quotes at great length from the Hawaii cert petition. Having the two major parties file simultaneously will tend to filter out the effect of any partisanship that lurks in the minds of the various U.S. Supreme Court justices. Here is the cert petition in the Montana case, which is Ravalli County Republican Central Committee v McCulloch. Thanks to Rick Hasen for both links.