On May 22, Robert Raymond, a professional petitioner, filed his brief in the Ninth Circuit in Raymond v Fenumiai, 13-35090. The issue is Alaska’s ban on out-of-state petitioners, which only includes ballot measures, not candidates. The U.S. District Court had ruled that Raymond lacks standing because he didn’t specify any particular initiative petition he wished to work on. Therefore, his brief to the Ninth Circuit is on the issue of whether he has standing.

There are now ballot access cases pending in the Ninth Circuit from four states, Alaska, Arizona, California, and Nevada. The Arizona case concerns whether states that provide primaries to five parties can just list two of those parties on the voter registration forms. The California case includes one filed by the Peace & Freedom Party over presidential qualifications, and one filed by a California candidate on the subject of discriminatory ballot label laws. The Nevada case concerns whether “None of the Above” is unconstitutional unless it is altered to provide that if it wins, it is binding.

According to this story, Wyoming State Senator Cale Case (R-Lander), chair of the committee that handles election law bills, believes the state’s petition procedures for initiatives and referendums should be eased somewhat.

On June 3, the U.S. Supreme Court released some opinions in non-election law cases, but did not release the decision in either of the two argued election law cases. One involves the Voting Rights Act and one involves the 1993 “Motor Voter” federal voter registration law. The next decision release day will be Monday, June 10.