On January 27, the Greenville County, South Carolina, Republican Party filed its opening brief in the Fourth Circuit. The case is Greenville County Republican Party v Way, 13-2170. The issue is whether the county Republican Party may prevent non-Republicans from voting in its primaries, especially its municipal primaries.

In South Carolina, in cities with partisan city elections, political parties still pay for their own primaries. The party rents the polling places, hires individuals to adminster the election during the hours the polls are open, and pays individuals to count the votes. The party argues vociferously that, therefore, it has a right to limit voters in its primaries to party members. The brief presents evidence that officers of the Democratic Party, and even two state Democratic legislators, have voted in recent Republican primaries. The brief also presents evidence that tens of thousands of voters who voted in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary then voted in the following Republican county and city primaries.

The brief also argues that the state law making it very difficult for the county party to switch to nominating by convention is too restrictive. The state law says that if a state party, or a county party, wants to nominate by convention instead of primary, the resolution authorizing such a change must be approved by 75% of all the delegates to the party convention, whether they are present in the room or not.

Finally, the brief argues that a county political party does have standing to challenge the various election laws governing open primaries, because it is county parties, and also city parties, who administer the primaries for county and city office. The U.S. District Court had dismissed the lawsuit because it felt only a state party has standing to challenge the laws. Originally the state Republican Party had been a co-plaintiff, but during the course of the litigation in U.S. District Court, the state party dropped out of the lawsuit, after a new state chair replaced the former state chair.

This Arkansas News story says that the Arkansas legislature frquently makes mistakes when it drafts election law bills. The article gives examples. The article does not mention that in 2013, the legislature moved the petition for non-presidential independent candidates from May to March, and moved the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties from May to January. Both laws will be held unconstitutional if they are challenged.

There are already three past federal court decisions striking down Arkansas deadlines for non-presidential independent candidates that are that early, and one of them was summarily affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ironically, the same individual, Jim Lendall, filed all three cases, which were won in 1974, 1976, and 1988.

There are also two reported federal court decisions striking down such early petition deadlines for newly-qualifying parties in Arkansas, one won by the American Party in 1977 and one won by the Reform Party in 1996.

Steven St. John, an independent candidate for U.S. House in Nevada’s Third District, says if elected, he will arrange to let registered voters in the district vote tell him how to vote, on certain important issues. See this story for more details.