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.

On June 21, both sides in Libertarian Party of Virginia v Judd filed simultaneous briefs for Summary Judgment. This means both sides agree that there is no need for a trial, and the next action will probably be a fairly quick decision from the judge. The issue is Virginia’s ban on out-of-state circulators.

The state’s brief says that the Libertarian Party successfully petitioned for President in all elections starting with 1988 in Virginia, so the party doesn’t really need any relief. The state also says that co-plaintiff Darryl Bonner, a professional petitioner who doesn’t live in Virginia and who wants to circulate in Virginia, has no real complaint either, because he is free to be accompanied by a Virginia resident. Also the state says that Bonner may not even have standing, because in a deposition he said he hurt his knee and doesn’t plan to do any work in the near future.

The state’s brief is somewhat deceptive, because it says the Libertarian Party has not had trouble in the past, yet in 1984 the Libertarian Party’s petition drive for President failed in Virginia. The state’s brief makes no claim that there is any strong state interest in banning out-of-state circulators.

The Libertarian Party’s brief emphasizes that the party may have special need for outside circulators this year, because the state legislature and the Governor, by making late changes to the U.S. House districts, deprived all petitioning parties of their normal full petitioning time. The law says the petitions may start to circulate on January 1 of the election year, but in reality that was impossible this year because the petitions must list a candidate for presidential elector from each district, and until the district lines were final, the list of elector candidates couldn’t be finalized. Of course, the Libertarian Party brief also emphasizes that the overwhelming majority of precedents on the issue hold that bans on out-of-state circulators are unconstitutional.