The lawsuit filed in 2010 to challenge the ballot access requirements for candidates for citywide office in Chicago is still pending in U.S. District Court. The case is Stone v Board of Election Commissioners, northern district, 10-cv-7727. It challenges the requirement that candidates for citywide office in Chicago need 12,500 valid signatures, to be gathered in 90 days. A further restriction says voters who sign a petition for one candidate for a particular office are not then able to sign a petition for another candidate for the same office.

Chicago has non-partisan city elections, and elects three citywide officers: Mayor, City Clerk, and Treasurer. One of the arguments made by the plaintiffs is that because Illinois only requires 5,000 signatures for a candidate to get on a statewide Illinois partisan primary, there is no state interest in requiring 12,500 signatures to run in the non-partisan citywide offices.

Attorneys for the Board of Elections filed a response brief on November 20, 2012, in support of their motion for summary judgment. The candidate-plaintiffs are hoping the court will permit evidence to be gathered, showing that there is no governmental interest in such a high petition requirement. A ruling could come at any time.

The Michigan Secretary of State’s office prepared a certification form for the state’s Democratic presidential electors. The form spelled the President’s name “Barak Obama.” See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

Vermont permits write-in votes, but does not have a law that requires candidates to file a declaration of write-in candidacy. Therefore, to the extent that any write-ins for President are tallied depends on the good will of the Vermont Secretary of State’s office. In 2008, the Secretary of State tallied the write-ins for Green Party presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney. This year the office says it does not have the resources to tally any presidential write-in votes.

But, Kathleen Scheele, Director of Elections, says that if outside volunteers visit her office, they will be permitted to not only examine the election results sent in by each town clerk, but that if these volunteers tally the write-ins, she will accept their work product and place the tally on official letterhead. Having the returns on official letterhead stationery means that the various publications that tally the final, official vote for President will include these votes.

Therefore, if anyone living near Montpelier, Vermont, is willing to do this interesting work, for at least some of the write-in candidates, he or she should contact Scheele. Her e-mail is kscheele@sec.state.vt.us. The Vermont ballot last month did not include Jill Stein, nor Virgil Goode, nor Roseanne Barr, and they are probably the three actual presidential candidates who received the most write-ins. Of course, anyone would be free to tally any or all presidential write-ins, and chances are there were many write-ins for Ron Paul as well, and his total would be interesting.