On August 31, a lawsuit was filed in the Arkansas Supreme Court to remove the medical marijuana initiative from the November ballot. See this story. The lawsuit does not maintain that the initiative did not have enough signatures. Instead, it says if the voters passed the measure, that would violate federal law.
See this newspaper story for a brief account of the August 31 hearing on whether the Libertarian Party should remain on the ballot for President in Iowa. The judge said he will rule on Tuesday, September 4. Thanks to Brian Moore for the link.
On August 31, a lower state court in Arizona determined that the top-two open primary initiative has enough valid signatures to be on the ballot. See this story.
Current Ohio law and practice does not permit ordinary voters to vote early during the weekend before election day. But Ohio does give each county Board of Elections the discretion to let voters who are in the military vote early on that weekend. On August 31, U.S. District Court Judge Peter Economus, a Clinton appointee, ruled that the state must let all voters vote early during the weekend before election day.
The 23-page ruling is Obama for America v Husted, 2:12-cv-636, southern district. The State will quickly appeal the decision to the Sixth Circuit. The order acknowledges that there is no constitutional right for early voting at all. But because the state lets military voters vote early on the weekend (depending on the discretion of the County Board of Elections), therefore equal protection requires that all voters also be allowed to vote on that weekend. The decision cites Bush v Gore. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On August 31, the Oklahoma Americans Elect Party sued the State Board of Elections, over the Board’s refusal to let the party list its presidential candidate on the ballot. The state acknowledges that the Americans Elect Party is ballot-qualified, but says it won’t print the party’s presidential nominee on the ballot because the national leaders of Americans Elect don’t want that to happen. The case has a hearing on September 5, 2012, at 1:30 p.m., before a State Supreme Court referee.
The Oklahoma State Supreme Court frequently arranges for cases to be heard by a referee. Then the referee makes a summary of the evidence and arguments on both sides, and makes a conclusion, and lets the State Supreme Court decide whether it agrees or not. The case is Lawhorn v Ziriax. The state leaders of Americans Elect had nominated Gary Johnson on July 21, and the State didn’t react to that decision until August 29. The Attorney General had recommended to the State Board of Elections on August 17 that the state deny the request of the state party. But that opinion was kept secret until August 29.
Here is the brief. Here is the application, asking the State Supreme Court to hear the case. UPDATE: here is a news story about the lawsuit.
