On October 3, a U.S. District Court Judge in Washington state heard oral arguments in Doe v Reed, the case over whether people who sign referendum petitions may block their names and addresses from being put up on a web page run by opponents of that petition. See this story. This case has already been to the U.S. Supreme Court and back down again. The U.S. Supreme Court said in general that there is no privacy right for voters who sign petitions, but there may still be a privacy right if the signers can show they are subject to harassment if their names and addresses are made public.

The judge indicated he is likely to rule in two weeks whether the names and addresses should be released. The petition involved whether or not to suspend a law passed by the legislature that permitted civil unions for same-sex couples.

On October 3, an Arizona Superior Court in Maricopa County declined to remove Olivia Cortes from the ballot in next month’s special recall legislative election. The ballot will continue to list three candidates. The case is Boettcher v Bennett, cv 2011-015853. See this post at Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog, which has a link to the 9-page decision. The case had been filed by voters who had charged that one of the three candidates on the ballot was only running because supporters of State Senator Russell Pearce put her on the ballot, to increase the chances that Pearce would survive this special recall election. Opponents of Pearce wanted only one person on the ballot against Pearce. But the judge ruled courts have no business removing candidates from the ballot based on the motives of those candidates. UPDATE: here is an essay about why the judge was right, by Law Professor Anthony Tsontakis, who defended Cortes.

As reported previously, on September 13, New York held a special election for U.S. House, 9th district, with three candidates on the ballot. The only person running who wasn’t a Republican or a Democrat was Chris Hoeppner, the Socialist Workers nominee. He only received one-fifth of 1% of the total vote. This copy of the ballot shows why. Hoeppner was on a lower line than the other candidates. Even the write-in space, and a blank space for a Green Party nominee (if there had been one, which there wasn’t) were on the top line. An ordinary person would not perceive that Hoeppner was running in the U.S. House race.