As noted earlier, on June 7 the Arizona legislature filed an interesting federal case, arguing that Independent Redistricting Commissions are unconstitutional as applied to U.S. House elections, because the Elections Clause in Article One of the U.S. Constitution requires that legislatures themselves must pass all state laws relating to congressional elections. That case is Arizona State Legislature v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 2:12-cv-1211.

The legislature probably made a legal error when it asked for a 3-judge U.S. District Court. The redistricting commission is arguing that this case is not appropriate for a 3-judge U.S. District Court. Federal law says cases challenging redistricting of congressional elections goes to a 3-judge court, but the redistricting commission says this case isn’t about whether the redistricting plan itself is unlawful, but instead is a case about the method by which Arizona carries out redistricting. This side dispute is eating up valuable time, if the legislature wanted to get the case settled quickly.

On July 17, President Obama’s re-election campaign, and the Ohio Democratic Party, and the National Democratic Committee filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio. The lawsuit charges that Ohio’s elimination of early voting on November 3-5 (the weekend and Monday before election day) violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Ohio permitted early voting on the three days before the 2008 presidential election, but the law was changed since then. Here is the complaint. The case is Obama for America v Husted, 2:12-cv-636. It was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Peter C. Economus, a Clinton appointee.

The case will point out all the problems in Ohio in November 2004, when at some precincts, there were so few voting booths, and so many voters, that some voters had to wait in line for more than four hours. Other Ohio precincts with fewer voters had many more voting booths, and voters in those precincts had to wait only a brief time in order to vote. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

On Sunday, July 15, the ballot-qualified Independent Party of Delaware held its state convention in Bridgeville. It nominated Alex Pires for U.S. Senate, but declined to nominate anyone for President. Rocky Anderson had sought the presidential nomination. In 2008, the Independent Party had nominated Ralph Nader for President.

Pires, the U.S. Senate nominee, had already collected 9,200 signatures to be an independent candidate. He is well-known and has an energetic campaign. However, even though the legal requirement is 6,070 signatures, Pires felt Delaware’s signature verification process is poorly administered and that he could not be certain his petition would be approved. With the Independent Party nomination, he is safely on the November ballot.