On August 30, U.S. District Court Judge Mary G Lewis issued this opinion in Greenville County Republican Party v Way, 6:10-1407. The 21-page opinion explains why the Greenville County Republican Party doesn’t have standing to challenge various South Carolina election laws that require parties to open their primaries to all voters, even when the party pays for the administration of the primary.

The judge had ruled from the bench on August 21 that the party lacks standing, and how she has explained her ruling. The decision does not mention the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision San Francisco County Democratic Party v Eu, a unanimous decision that struck down many California election laws that limited the freedom of political parties. Neither the state Democratic Party nor the state Republican Party had participated in that lawsuit, but the county party organizations that did participate were deemed to have standing. Thanks to Harry Kresky for the opinion.

On August 30, the North Dakota Secretary of State determined that the Libertarian Party’s petition is valid, so the party is on the 2014 ballot. No other minor parties are ballot-qualified in this state. The party can stay on the ballot after 2014 if it can poll 5% for either Secretary of State or Attorney General in 2014. The only party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, that has met the North Dakota 5% vote test in the last 80 years was the Reform Party, which met the vote test in 1996 but which went off the ballot after the 1998 election. Although certain other minor parties received 5% for President during the last 80 years, before 1996 the only office that counted for retention of party status had been Governor. Fortunately, during the 1990’s the legislature expanded the list of offices for which the vote test applies.

The North Dakota Libertarian petition is the first qualifying petition for a party that has been completed in 2013, anywhere in the nation. Thanks to Bob Johnston for this news.

On July 8, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Robert M. Dow, a George W. Bush appointee, upheld Illinois election laws that require candidates for non-partisan citywide office in Chicago to obtain 12,500 signatures. He also upheld the law that permits only 90 days to get the signatures, and the law that says voters can only sign for one candidate for each office. Stone v Board of Election Commissioners, 10-cv-7727.

The 21-page decision does not even discuss the arguments made by the five candidates who filed the lawsuit. They argued that because Illinois only requires 5,000 signatures to get on a partisan primary ballot for statewide office, it is not logical to require more than 5,000 signatures for Chicago. They also provided evidence that no other city in the United States requires nearly that many signatures for its citywide offices.

Instead of mentioning those points, the decision merely relies on the U.S. Supreme Court’s bad ballot access precedents. The decision does not mention either of the U.S. Supreme Court precedents that struck down old Illinois laws that said candidates in part of the state must get more signatures than statewide candidates. Those precedents were in 1979 (Illinois State Board of Elections v Socialist Workers Party) and 1992 (Norman v Reed).

The decision upholds the 90-day period for gathering signatures on the basis that in 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’ 55-day period in American Party of Texas v White. However, the decision does not mention that Texas had a rational reason for setting a starting date, which was that Texas didn’t want anyone to sign a general election petition if that voter had voted in a partisan primary. In the Chicago case, there is no such factor.

The decision upholds the restriction that says no one can sign for more petition, without acknowledging the practical problem this creates for candidates who are not backed by the Chicago Democratic organization. Sometimes the organization expends all its resources gathering a massive number of signatures for its favored candidates (even though the election is non-partisan), so that it is difficult for other candidates to find a large enough pool of voters who haven’t already signed for the favored candidate. The decision says the ballot access requirements are needed because otherwise ballots would be the size of phone books, a statement that other Illinois judges have made in ballot access cases that bears no relationship to reality. The only jurisdictions with crowded ballots have extremely low or non-existence ballot access barriers. The plaintiffs are appealing.