On May 8, the Ninth Circuit ruled that a resident of Guam is entitled to get a ruling on whether a particular Guam election law is unconstitutional. Guam law says residents who are descended from someone who was living in Guam in 1898 are entitled to register to vote in a special election on the future political status of Guam. The future election will ask eligible voters if Guam should become independent, join a compact of free association with the United States, or apply for statehood.

The plaintiff is not descended from someone who was living in Guam in 1898, but he wanted to register for that election. The U.S. District Court in Guam had refused to adjudicate the claim, on the basis that the election won’t occur until 70% of the eligible residents sign up, and so far the number of people who have signed up is far below that percentage. But the Ninth Circuit said the plaintiff is entitled to have his case heard, even if it is not known if the election will ever be held. The majority opinion says, “Unequal treatment is an injury even if curing the inequality has no tangible consequences.”

The case now goes back to U.S. District Court. It is Davis v Guam, 13-15199. It had been argued August 27, 2014, so took almost ninth months to be written. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

On May 7, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party of Arizona asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider the April 2015 decision in Arizona Libertarian Party v Bennett, 13-16254. The issue is the voter registration form, which gives the two largest parties a checkbox but requires voters who wish to register into any other qualified party to write-in the name of that party in the “other” line. The Ninth Circuit had this is only a trivial burden and upheld it on the basis of saving money.

The British election returns for the May 7 House of Commons election show these results:

Conservatives won 50.8% of the seats with 37% of the popular vote.
Labour won 35.6% of the seats with 31% of the popular vote.
Scottish National Party won 8.6% of the seats with 5% of the popular vote.
Liberal Democratic Party won 1.3% of the seats with 8% of the popular vote.
Plaid Cymru won .5% of the seats with 1% of the popular vote.
UKIP won .2% of the seats with 13% of the popular vote.
Greens won .2% of the seats with 4% of the popular vote.
others won 2.9% of the seats with 1% of the popular vote.

The discrepancy between percentage of seats won, versus share of the national popular vote, is so extreme (especially in the case of UKIP and the Liberal Democratic Party), that there will be increased interest in Britain for proportional representation. Here is a news story about the election returns. UPDATE: this news story says that UKIP, and the Green Party, will now work hard to create support for proportional representation.