On January 10, outgoing Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed HB 4576. It provides for special elections for the statewide elected constitutional offices, other than Governor, if the incumbent dies early in the four-year term. As a result, Illinois will hold a special election for Comptroller in November 2016.

The bill was originally about credit checks by prospective employers. It passed the House in the spring of 2014 and languished in the State Senate, but in November 2014 it was revived, all the original contents were removed, and the provision for special elections was added. It passed the legislature on January 8.

On January 10, the Montana Republican State Central Committee voted 83-43 to add the state party’s name to the list of co-plaintiffs, in Ravalli County Republican Central Committee v McCulloch, 6:14cv-58. See this story. The lawsuit, filed by some county units of the Montana Republican Party, says that the party has a constitutional right to prevent members of other parties from voting in its primaries, especially for party office.

Montana has open primaries, which means that on primary day, any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot. If the lawsuit wins, the state legislature will probably alter the voter registration form, to ask applicants to choose a party or independent status.

Montana only has three qualified parties: Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian. The Democratic and Libertarian Parties will be free to continue letting any voter vote in their primaries, if the Republican Party wins the lawsuit. Generally, though, the Montana Libertarian Party doesn’t actually have a primary, because generally no more than one candidate files in the Libertarian primary for any particular office. When that happens, election officials don’t print up primary ballots for the Libertarian Party.

On January 9, U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Watson issued a procedural order in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, s.d., 2:13-cv-953. This is the case in which the Libertarian Party is challenging the definition of “political party” passed by the Ohio legislature in November 2013. This is also the case in which the Libertarian Party tried to get its gubernatorial candidate on its own primary ballot in May 2014, but failed.

The new ruling refuses to award sanctions against the Libertarian Party’s attorney. The party’s attorney had used discovery to learn that the individual who challenged the Libertarian Party’s primary petition did not know who was paying his attorney. The party’s attorney further used discovery to find out who was paying the legal bills for the challenger. The attorney for the challenger then tried to persuade the court that the party’s attorney should be punished for his skillful work ferreting out the truth.