On December 2, two organizations that advocate for voting rights filed a lawsuit against Alabama’s requirement that voters at the polls must show certain kinds of government photo-ID. The case is Birmingham Ministries and NAACP v State of Alabama, northern district, 2:15cv-2193. The case was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge L. Scott Coogler, a Bush Jr. appointee. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news. Here is the Complaint.
Johns Creek, Georgia, held run-off elections for city council on December 1. Chris Coughlin, a Libertarian Party member, won the race for the special term, for city council post 2. But he lost the race for the full term. He won the special election with 59.1% of the vote but was defeated for the full term seat with 47.5%. See this story. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.
The Tennessee Secretary of State says 14 Republicans and 3 Democrats will be on the presidential primary ballot. See this story for a list of the names. Presidential candidates get on the primary ballot either by being discussed in major news media, or by submitting 2,500 signatures of registered voters. No candidate submitted a petition.
The 2016 Republican presidential primary will have more names than any past Tennessee presidential primary. Before 2016, the most crowded presidential primary ballot in Tennessee had been the 2004 Democratic ballot, which had eleven names. The Republican presidential primary ballots had had 10 in 2012, 2008, and 1996.
Virginia requires all presidential primary candidates to submit at least 5,000 signatures. According to this story, the state party is expecting at least twelve candidates to submit petitions. That will be the most crowded Virginia Republican presidential primary ever. The previous record for the Virginia Republican presidential primary was seven candidates in 1988.
Among states that ever required at least 1,000 signatures to get on a presidential primary ballot, the most crowded presidential primary ballot was the Pennsylvania Democratic ballot of 1984, when ten candidates qualified. At that time Pennsylvania required 1,000 signatures. In 1985 the Pennsylvania legislature doubled the requirement to 2,000.
On November 30, a state trial court in Tucson, Arizona, heard a case filed by two Republican nominees for city council in the 2015 election. Tucson uses partisan city elections, in which partisan primaries are held in districts to select party nominees. Then those nominees run in at-large elections in November. On November 3, Democrats won all the seats. One week later, the Ninth Circuit ruled 2-1 the Tucson system violates the 14th amendment. Now the two Republicans who carried their home districts on November 3, but not the citywide vote, argue they should be deemed the winners. See this story.
Meanwhile, the city has obtained permission to file a request for rehearing beyond the normal time limit. The rehearing request is now due December 11.
