On January 20, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an eleven-page unsigned unanimous opinion, telling the 3-judge U.S. District Court in Texas to redraw the congressional and legislative districts that that court had drawn earlier. See this report from Scotusblog. Here is the order. See this newspaper story.
On January 19, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., heard arguments in Shelby County, Alabama v Holder. This is one of several cases challenging section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act. Section five requires certain parts of the nation to get U.S. Justice Department approval before changing election laws. According to this story, two of the three judges seemed skeptical of Shelby County’s arguments.
Newspapers in Texas seem to have just noticed that the Democratic Party’s lawsuit against the Green Party was settled, back on December 17, 2011. This news was blogged on this web page more than a month ago, and was also in the January 1, 2012 print edition of Ballot Access News. See this recent story in the Texas Tribune.
As has been reported earlier, Stephen Colbert is not on the ballot in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, but he holds himself out as a candidate in that primary. Write-ins are not allowed, so Colbert is asking his voters to vote for Herman Cain, who is on the ballot. Cain seems happy with this and is even planning a joint appearance in South Carolina with Colbert, according to this story.
But the story also says the Democratic Party of South Carolina is unhappy with Colbert, and urges non-Republicans not to vote in the Republican presidential primary. Unlike Virginia Democrats, who don’t have a presidential primary, South Carolina Democrats do have a presidential primary, but only President Obama is on their ballot.
On January 19, the Arkansas Secretary of State said that the Green Party has enough valid signatures on its petition. 10,000 were needed, and the party had submitted 14,000. Arkansas will now have four ballot-qualified parties on its 2012 ballot. Already on were the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian Parties. This is the first time Arkansas will have had as many as four ballot-qualified parties for all partisan office, since 1971, when the state started requiring petitions for minor party ballot access.
Arkansas has separate procedures for minor parties that only want to be on the ballot for President. That presidential procedure only requires 1,000 signatures. Americans Elect had already qualified for the 2012 Arkansas presidential ballot, and chances are another four or five parties will qualify in Arkansas for President.
