On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Susan B. Anthony List v Driehaus, 13-193. The issue is the constitutionality of an Ohio law that makes it a criminal offense for anyone to spend money on a statement about a candidate or ballot measure that the state considers false. The lower federal courts had refused to rule on the constitutionality of the law, citing procedural reasons. There have been several separate challenges to the law, but so far none of the lawsuits has resulted in any court deciding whether the law is constitutional.

Virtually every comment and question made by any Justice was critical of the lower court decision. It is extremely likely that the Supreme Court will remand the case back to a lower court and ask it to decide the constitutional issue. If that happens, it is somewhat likely that the precedent will help in other election law cases, and First Amendment cases, to overcome standing problems.

On April 23, the South Carolina Supreme Court agreed to hear South Carolina Libertarian Party v South Carolina State Election Commission, 2014-000775. The hearing will be at 10 a.m. on Thursday, April 24.

The issue is the validity and meaning of SB 2, passed in 2013. It says that if parties want to nominate by convention, they must put that idea to a vote at the party’s primary. The legislature seemed to forget that all of South Carolina’s ballot-qualified parties already nominate by convention. Last year, the South Carolina Libertarian Party had asked the Election Commission to hold a primary for the party in 2014, but the Election Commission said that is too much work. The Attorney General then wrote an opinion saying obviously the 2013 bill was never intended to apply to parties that normally already nominate by convention.

A side issue is whether SB 2 is valid, given that the bill says it won’t go into effect until the U.S. Justice Department pre-clears the bill. A few weeks after the bill was signed into law, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Shelby County, Alabama v Holder, knocking out part of the federal Voting Rights Act, so the state then didn’t bother to ask for pre-clearance. However, under the literal language of the bill, the bill isn’t in effect, but the state is enforcing it.

On April 22, the California Secretary of State released new voter registration data. The new data is as of April 4, 2014; the previous tally was for December 31, 2013. The new figures, compared to the previous tally, show that all five of California’s minor parties have more registrations than they had previously. Also the number of independent voters grew. But the Democratic Party and the Republican Party lost members.

The new figures are: Democratic 7,678,424; Republican 5,041,564; American Independent 472,536; Libertarian 114,656; Green 109,157; Peace & Freedom 77,594; Americans Elect 3,604, other parties 444,020 (this includes people who didn’t check any box); no party preference 3,718,931.

The Dec. 31, 2013 figures are: Democratic 7,695,907; Republican 5,073,380; American Independent 469,648; Libertarian 112,527; Green 108,785; Peace & Freedom 76,268; Americans Elect 3,482; other parties 421,600; no party preference 3,698,660.

There is no data for the Constitution Party or the Veterans Party, the only two unqualified parties that have re-filed to have their registrations tallied. That is because those two groups did not file the paperwork in time to be included in the new tally. But they will be included in the tally that comes out next month.