Lisa Madigan, Illinois Attorney General, agrees that incoming Governor Bruce Rauner has the authority to appoint a new State Comptroller to replace Judy Baar Topinka, who died this month, shortly after being re-elected. But the Attorney General also advocates that the legislature change the law, to provide that the gubernatorial appointment only be good until the November 2016 election. Comptroller is a four-year office, so if the law is not changed, the person appointed soon will serve the entire four years even though that person had not been elected. See this story.

Now that all states have reported their official vote totals, it is possible to calculate the vote for each nationally-organized party’s vote for the office at the top of the ballot for November 2014. Top-of-ballot office is defined to mean Governor. If a state didn’t have a gubernatorial election, it is U.S. Senate. For the five states that had neither office up, it is the office actually at the top of the ballot: U.S. House in North Dakota and Washington, Attorney General for Utah, Secretary of State for Indiana, Auditor for Missouri. The calculation also includes the Mayoral vote for Washington, D.C.

Republican: 40,936,511, down 5.9% from the party’s 2010 total of 43,507,666.

Democratic: 36,888,617, down 10.1% from the party’s 2010 total of 41,043,721.

Libertarian: 1,471,172, up 44.9% from the party’s 2010 total of 1,015,009.

Green: 416,383, down 18.1% from the party’s 2010 total of 508,041.

The 2014 Libertarian total is the second highest number of votes ever for a minor party, for a midterm year top-of-the-ballot races. The highest was the 1914 Progressive Party’s total of 1,489,151. The third highest is now the Reform Party’s 1998 total, which was 1,407,005.

The chief reason the Green total declined between 2010 and 2014 is that in 2010, the Green Party was on the ballot for Governor of California, and it polled 129,231 votes. In 2014 the California top-two system kept all minor party candidates off the ballot for Governor.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Reed v Town of Gilbert, 13-502, on January 12, 2015. This is not an election law case, but it is a case involving the First Amendment, and all First Amendment decisions have some impact on election law. The issue in this case is a town ordinance that bans many kinds of signs. The ordinance was challenged by a church that wants to post permanent signs letting passersby know where the church holds its services. The church does not own its own permanent worship space.

Here is the brief of the town, defending its ban. Here is the church’s reply brief, filed December 15.