On May 17, the Pennsylvania Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties filed a new federal lawsuit against the Pennsylvania system for checking petitions. The system, ever since 2004, has put petitioning candidates in jeopardy of paying court costs of up to $100,000 if their petitions are found to lack enough valid signatures. The case is in the eastern district, in Philadelphia. Here is the complaint. The first affidavit also starts at that link. Here is are the following pages of that affidavit, plus some other affidavits. And here is the last set of affidavits.

The case, Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Aichele, 5:12-cv-2726, was assigned to Judge Lawrence Stengel, the same U.S. District Court judge who ruled in a similar case in 2009 that the plaintiff parties lack standing. This time, the complaint has been designed to withstand that peril.

Pennsylvania and Alabama are the only states in which no statewide minor party or independent candidates appeared on the ballot in any non-presidential election year, during the period 2005 to the present. All the statewide minor party petitions filed in 2010 in Pennsylvania were withdrawn after major party leaders threatened to challenge those petitions. In 2006, the only statewide petition submitted by a minor party or independent candidate was the Green Party petition, and the party’s U.S. Senate nominee, Carl Romanelli, was ordered to pay over $80,000 when that petition was found lacking in enough valid signatures. The only statewide minor party or independent petitions that have succeeded in Pennsylvania in the last seven years are the 2008 Libertarian petition and the 2008 independent Ralph Nader petition.

On March 13, the federal government charged Illinois Democratic State Representative Derrick Smith with bribery. Nevertheless, on March 20, Smith was renominated in the Democratic primary. His only opponent in the Democratic primary in the 10th district was Tom Swiss, a former executive director of the Cook County Republican Party. Also, the district is majority black, and Swiss is white.

Democratic Party leaders supported Smith in the Democratic primary, because they didn’t want an individual winning the Democratic primary who was, apparently, loyal to the Republican Party. But they hoped to persuade Smith to withdraw after the primary was over. However, he says he is innocent, and has pleaded not guilty, and he won’t withdraw. So Democratic Party leaders now plan to create the Tenth District Unity Party and place it on the November ballot. On May 22 the leaders of this new party will choose a nominee. Six candidates have applied for the new party’s nomination. See this story. The new party will need a petition of 1,500 names. If it gets at least 5% of the vote in November, it will also be ballot-qualified in 2014. It is somewhat likely that the nominee of this new party will win the November election. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

Michael Medved has this column at The Daily Beast, warning that the U.S. would be severely troubled if the 2012 election turns out like the 2000 election. Medved believes it is somewhat plausible that Mitt Romney might get a majority of the electoral college, but President Obama would have had a substantial popular vote plurality.

Medved does not mention the possibility of an electoral college tie, but that is conceivable. There have been an even number of presidential electors starting with the 1964 election.