There are at least five states in which U.S. District Courts could at any time issue an opinion on the constitutionality of a ballot access law.

In Alabama, U.S. District Court Judge Myron Thompson will decide Hall v Bennett. The issue is whether the state’s severe 3% petition requirement for independent candidates must be eased when special elections are called, given that the time frame to collect signatures in a special election is so much shorter than in a regular election.

In Illinois, U.S. District Court Judge Andrea Wood will decide Libertarian Party of Illinois v Illinois State Board of Elections. The issue is the state’s law that requires newly-qualifying parties to submit a full slate of candidates. No other state has ever had such a law, and even Illinois doesn’t force already-established parties to run a full slate. The law has existed since 1935.

In Missouri, U.S. District Court Judge Ronnie White will decide if St. Louis County can constitutionally limit special elections for County Council to only the two parties that polled the biggest vote for Governor in the last election. The case is Constitution Party of Missouri v St. Louis County.

In New Mexico, U.S. District Court Judge Martha Vazquez will decide Parker v Duran. The issue is whether New Mexico can require independent candidates to submit a petition of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, when the petition for minor parties to get on the ballot for themselves is only one-half of 1%, and the minor party nominee petition is 1%.

In Ohio, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson will decide Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted. The issue is whether the state’s new procedures for minor parties, passed in late 2013, are consistent with the Ohio Constitution. The Ohio Constitution appears to require that all parties nominate by primary, and yet the new law says newly-qualifying parties should nominate by convention. There are other issues in the case also. The Secretary of State has taken the position that the Libertarian Party is not ballot-qualified for the local partisan elections of 2015. Here is a news story about that.

There are constitutional ballot access cases pending in other states as well, but the cases listed above seem to be the only ones that are fully briefed. Cases not ready for a decision (either from a trial court or a higher court) are pending in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

The Daily Journal has this story about the Vermont bill to set that state’s presidential primary on the same day as the New Hampshire presidential primary.

In the last two days, two very well-informed and sophisticated individuals, both of whom support California’s top-two system, have published assertions that California had a closed primary before the top-two system was implemented in 2011. The February 14 Los Angeles Times has this letter to the editor from Bill Bloomfield, asserting that California had a closed primary before 2011. Bloomfield is a very wealthy, politically active individual who ran a strong campaign for Congress from Los Angeles County in 2012. Scroll down to see his letter. UPDATE: to his credit, he sent me an e-mail shortly after this post was put up, saying he should have said in his letter the pre-2011 primaries were “semi-closed.”

Fox & Hounds, a well-known California blog for politics, ran an article on February 12, asserting that California had a closed primary before 2011. The article is by Marty Wilson, an official of the California Chamber of Commerce.

All Democratic and Republican primaries for congress and partisan state office were open to independent voters, in each election 2001-2010. But, proponents of the top-two system have spread misinformation about this so widely that even the three judges on the State Court of Appeals got it wrong in their January 29, 2015 opinion upholding the top-two system in Rubin v Padilla.