On December 8, the U.S. Supreme Court put out its first full election law decision of the current term. Here is the decision in Shapiro v McManus, 14-990. It is unanimous. The case had been argued November 4.

The plaintiffs had filed a lawsuit against Maryland’s U.S. House redistricting, arguing that it represented a severe gerrymander by Democrats and was thus unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Federal law says challenges to redistricting deserve a 3-judge U.S. District Court, unless the case is wholly unsubstantial. The U.S. District Court single judge had ruled that the Shapiro case is too insubstantial to merit a 3-judge court. The Fourth Circuit then agreed with the single judge in the U.S. District Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed both of the lower courts, and said the case does deserve a 3-judge court. Now the U.S. District Court in Maryland will be required to convene a 3-judge court to hear the case.

On December 7, Hillary Clinton submitted her Virginia ballot access petition. This story doesn’t say how many raw signatures were submitted, but perhaps the information will be available soon. The requirement is 5,000 signatures, due December 10.

Sam Wang has this article about gerrymandering in the New York Times. He says there are several statistical methods that should allow anyone to measure when partisan gerrymandering is excessive. He hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court will outlaw extreme partisan gerrymandering some day.