On September 26, the Fifth Circuit issued an explanation of why it had earlier reversed a U.S. District Court, and left certain Texas restrictions on voter registration drives in place. Voting for America v Andrade, 12-4094. The vote is 2-1. The dissent is considerably longer and more analytical than the majority opinion.

Among the restrictions that remain in place, at least until the case is decided, are restrictions on out-of-state residents who want to work on Texas voter registration drives; restrictions on how paid workers can be paid; and the restriction that forbids voter registration workers from making photocopies of the completed registration forms before they are submitted.

Jesse Ventura has made a campaign ad for Gary Johnson, which focuses on general election debates. Ventura asks viewers to telephone the Commission on Presidential Debates and request more inclusive invitations.

Robert R. Raymond is an individual who wishes to circulate petitions in California, even though he is domiciled in Wisconsin. He has been a professional petition circulator for twenty years. During the last week of August, he sued nineteen California counties, after ascertaining that these particular nineteen counties would not permit him to work in their counties. The cases pending in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District have been combined, as have the cases pending in the Eastern District (in California, the northern district is centered in San Francisco, and the eastern district is centered in Sacramento, although those districts have other courthouse locations).

The counties that are being sued are: Alpine, Amador, Glenn, Humboldt, Inyo, Kings, Marin, Monterey, Napa, Placer, Plumas, San Benito, San Francisco, San Joaquin, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Stanislaus, Tehama, and Yolo.

California legislators has been deaf to requests that they introduce bills to repeal residency requirements for circulators. It has been over four years since the 9th circuit struck down restrictions on out-of-state circulators, in Nader v Brewer, an Arizona case. California and Arizona are both in the 9th circuit. Since then, the Arizona legislature has repealed residency requirements for circulators of all types of petition. The top-two open primary initiative in Arizona this year, Prop. 121, probably would not have got on the Arizona ballot if the proponents had not been able to hire professional circulators who don’t live in Arizona.

A status conference on the cases in the Eastern District will be held on December 10, 2012, before U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell. The case in each county has its own case number, but one of the cases is Raymond v Howard, 2:12-cv-2215. That happens to be the case against Alpine County.