This year, the New York Libertarian Party nominated Daniel J. Halloran for U.S. House, 6th district. The party submitted 4,500 signatures to meet a requirement of 3,000 signatures. The petition was not challenged. But because Halloran is also the Republican Party nominee and he is also the Conservative Party nominee, the State Board of Elections will not print a separate box on the ballot so that voters can vote for Halloran as a Libertarian. Instead the Board said it would print the word “Libertarian” within the box on the ballot on either the Conservative line, or the Republican line, whichever he chooses.

This policy is already being challenged in court by the Libertarian Party. The hearing in the similar 2010 case will be December 4, 2012, too late to give any relief to Halloran. That earlier case is Credico v New York State Board of Elections, U.S. District Court, 10-cv-4555. The 2010 case involved the failure of the State Board of Elections to give Randy Credico, candidate for U.S. Senate, a box on the ballot so voters could vote for him as a Libertarian, and an additional box so that voters could vote for him as the nominee of the Anti-Prohibition Party. Both parties had their own lines on the ballot.

The state policy creates a confusing ballot. The Libertarian Party has its own party column on the ballot, and the ballot would be far less confusing if the Board simply printed Halloran’s name in the Libertarian Party column. Instead, there is a blank space for U.S. House in the Libertarian column, yet voters will see the word “Libertarian” in either the Republican column or the Conservative column. And voters will lose the ability to signal that they support Halloran as a Libertarian; they will be forced to cast a vote that will be credited either to the Republican Party or the Conservative Party, depending on which line Halloran chooses for the Libertarian label. Thanks to Mark Axinn for this news.

It is likely that the Gary Johnson-Jill Stein debate, set for October 30 in Washington, D.C., will be postponed due to the upcoming east coast storm, which makes travel very difficult.

A Superior Court Judge in Alameda County, California, will hear Rubin v Bowen on Monday, October 29, at 9 a.m, in Oakland, 1221 Oak Street, Dept. 16. This is the lawsuit filed by the California Peace & Freedom Party, the California Libertarian Party, and the Green Party of Alameda County. This is the only lawsuit ever filed against any top-two system in which the chief issue is the voting rights of voters who wish to vote for minor party candidates in the election itself.

While it is true the Washington state Libertarian Party raised that issue in the federal case from Washington state, the voting rights issue was completely omitted from the oral argument in the 9th circuit. The only attorney who argued against the Washington state top-two case law in the 9th circuit devoted all his time (in the oral argument) to the freedom of association issue. The 9th circuit decision made little mention of the voting rights issue except to assert falsely that the U.S. Supreme Court had already disposed of that issue in 2000. The 9th circuit is obviously wrong about that, because Justice Scalia wrote the 2000 decision, and yet he dissented in the 2008 decision. What Scalia approved of in his decision in 2000 is obviously not the existing Washington state system.

The California lawsuit Field v Bowen did not concern the issue of a limited range of choices on the November ballot.

No tentative opinion in Rubin v Bowen has been issued yet.