The New York Times story has this story about the difficult-to-read ballots used earlier this month in the primary. There are many huge deficiencies with the design of New York state ballots, but this story only covers the tiny print size used to print the names of candidates. Problems not mentioned in the article are features that deprive some political parties of their own party column, and instead squeeze two parties into the same column, even when there is lots of room to avoid doing that. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

On September 17, Ralph Nader and the Center for Competitive Democracy filed this amicus brief, in Field v Bowen. The issue is whether the six plaintiffs who challenged certain parts of California’s top-two open primary law should be required to pay almost $250,000 in attorneys fees to supporters of the top-two system who had intervened in the case.

On September 17, a lower state court in Arizona removed Darin Mitchell from the November ballot. He had won the Republican primary in August for State Representative, 13th district. See this story. Mitchell is appealing to the State Court of Appeals, but Maricopa County wants to start printing its ballots tonight. It is not clear that the Republican Party can replace him. UPDATE: on September 18, a state Appeals Court restored him to the ballot. See this story. The reversal came less than an hour before the ballot-printing process was to start. FURTHER UPDATE: the case has been appealed to the State Supreme Court, but the State Supreme Court left him on. See this story.

In Arizona, voters elect two representatives from each state house district. If Mitchell had remained off the ballot and the Republican Party had not replaced him, then write-in votes would have determined the winner. If Mitchell were off the ballot, there would only be one name on the ballot (Republican Steve Montenegro) but the voters are allowed to choose two representatives. No Democrat, no independent, and no minor party member had filed to run in this district. Anyone may file as a declared write-in candidate up until five days before the election.