On October 1, the U.S. Supreme Court released a list of eight cases that the Court is accepting for full review. None of the eight is an election law case. One election law case had been on the September 30 conference. That one case is Corsi v Ohio Election Commission, 12-1442. The fact that the Corsi case was not accepted does not mean that it won’t be accepted later, but the odds for this case eventually being heard are now somewhat lower. This case challenged the Ohio Election Commission, which had required Corsi, a small-budget blogger who blogs about candidates and local politics, to register and disclose his finances.

On September 30, the Michigan Libertarian Party filed this cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in Libertarian Party of Michigan v Ruth Johnson. The issue is whether sore loser laws in Michigan and nationally can be applied to presidential primaries. The Michigan Secretary of State wouldn’t put Gary Johnson on the ballot as the Libertarian nominee last year because his name had appeared on the Michigan Republican presidential primary, held in January 2012. Johnson’s name was on the Republican presidential primary ballots in 7 other states in 2012, but no other state kept him off the general election ballot for that reason.

UPDATE: the case number is 13-421.

On September 30, the U.S. Government sued North Carolina, alleging that four election laws passed earlier this year violate the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Voting Rights Act. The case is U.S.A. v The State of North Carolina, middle district, N.C., 13-cv-861. Here is the complaint.

The case concerns (1) few early voting days; (2) elimination of the ability of unregistered individuals to register at the early voting location just prior to voting; (3) new restrictions on provisional ballots; (4) the law requiring one of seven types of government photo-ID for voters voting at the polls. The lawsuit asks that North Carolina be placed under Section Three of the Voting Rights Act, a little-used portion of the Act that says states with a history of voting rights violations cannot make further election law changes without pre-clearance. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.