The Nation has a very interesting article about the Pennsylvania trial over photo-ID requirement for voters at the polls. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
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On August 2, Rocky Anderson communicated with Peace & Freedom Party delegates and said he is withdrawing his bid for the Peace & Freedom Party nomination. This development makes it seem very likely that Roseanne Barr will be the PFP presidential nominee. UPDATE: here is a Los Angeles Times story about Barr.
The West Virginia filing deadline for newly-qualifying parties and independent candidates has passed. The only group that submitted a statewide petition was the Libertarian Party, which submitted 10,246 signatures. The legal requirement is 7,135 for President and a slightly lesser number for Governor.
The Green Party is already on the ballot in West Virginia.
According to this story, the Green Party national ticket spent one night in jail in Philadelphia, and then the pair was released. Stein went on to campaign in Georgia.
This interesting BBC article, written for a British audience, describes campaign spending in the U.S. presidential race this year. The article says on a per-voter basis, American presidential candidates spent 23 times as much money as the British candidates for House of Commons put together. The article also mentions that multiple political parties in Britain get free air time. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
On August 2, U.S. District Court Judge Gregg Costa, an Obama appointee, enjoined five Texas laws that restrict groups and individuals that work in voter registration drives. The case is Voting for America v Andrade, southern district, cv-G-12-44. Here is the 94-page opinion.
The laws that were enjoined are: (1) no one can work in voter registration drives who doesn’t live in Texas; (2) no one can work outside one particular county; (2) payment to registration drive workers must be an hourly wage and compensation cannot be based on the worker’s productivity; (4) no completed voter registration forms can be photocopied by the registration drive workers or the registration drive organization; (5) all completed voter registration drives must be delivered to county elections officials in person, and they may not be mailed in.
The plaintiffs do not pay workers on a per-registration basis card basis, so they did not challenge the ban on paying on a per-registration card basis. But they did challenge the related law that says compensation cannot be based on the worker’s performance, and that part of the ban was enjoined. The plaintiff organizations want to be able to fire workers who do not do very much work.
The basis for the first three points is the First Amendment; the basis for the latter two points is that the Texas law conflicts with the federal law on voter registration forms, commonly known as the “motor-voter” law passed in 1993. Thanks to Chad Dunn for the link.