On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily struck down Montana’s law that makes it illegal for corporations to make independent expenditures for or against candidates for state and local office. The case is American Tradition Partnership v Bullock, 11-1179. Here is the very brief opinion. The vote was 5-4.

On December 30, 2011, the Montana Supreme Court had voted to uphold the Montana law by a vote of 5-2. The Montana Supreme Court decision seemed to defy the U.S. Supreme Court 2010 decision in Citizens United v FEC. That is why the U.S. Supreme Court majority felt there was no need to set the case for oral argument and full briefing. The 4-person minority on the U.S. Supreme Court would have simply refused to hear the Montana case, which would have left the Montana law in place.

For those people who enjoy the minutiae of election returns, especially for minor parties, the county elections web pages sometimes have interesting details that are not included in the Secretary of State’s web page.

Some, but not all, of the county election web pages include the number of write-ins cast in particular races, whether there were any declared write-in candidates in that race or not. For example, there were no declared write-in presidential candidates in the Libertarian Party’s presidential primary, but some counties show a large number of write-ins were cast in the Libertarian Party presidential primary. Many, if not most, of these write-ins may have been for Ron Paul. The percentage of write-ins cast in the Libertarian presidential primary in Calaveras County was 32.3%; in Lassen County 29.6%; in Contra Costa County 19.7%; in Alameda County 13.8%. These counties were chosen at random and most county web pages haven’t been checked.

In the American Independent primary, in many counties over half the votes cast for president were write-in votes. This is also true in some cases for the Peace & Freedom presidential primary.

The Orange County elections web page reveals that Orange County has 222 voters registered in Americans Elect, but only 18 of them turned out to cast a ballot in the June 5, 2012 primary for any office. Those voters were given a ballot intended for Independent voters, because Americans Elect didn’t want its own primary ballot printed up.

Many counties still haven’t finished their official tally.