The Connecticut Supreme Court has accepted jurisdiction in Republican Party of Connecticut v Merrill. Oral argument will be held on September 12. Connecticut law says the party that polled the most votes for its gubernatorial candidate should be listed first on the ballot. The Republican Party received more votes than any other party for Governor in 2010, but the Secretary of State, who is a Democrat, put the Democratic Party first on the ballot because she adds the votes of the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party together, and that sum is greater than the Republican Party vote total.

Connecticut ought to have a law that provides for either rotation, or random selection, to determine order of parties on the ballot. Approximately one-third of the states do have a policy that gives all parties a chance to appear first on the ballot.

On or before the August 21 deadline, three independent presidential petitions were submitted in New York. The petition for Virgil Goode has approximately 23,000 signatures. The petition for Peta Lindsay of the Party for Socialism and Liberation has approximately 26,500 signatures. The number of signatures for Gary Johnson is approximately 25,500 signatures. The state requires 15,000.

In New York, as in half the states, candidates listed on independent petitions are free to choose a partisan label other than just the word “independent.”

The Green Party is a ballot-qualified party in New York, so did not need to submit a petition. The other three ballot-qualified minor parties in New York are expected to cross-endorse the major party nominees.

No minor party statewide petition has been successfully challenged in New York since 1976, when Eugene McCarthy’s independent presidential petition was challenged. Even in 2004, when Nader was the subject of such hostility, no one challenged his New York petition. However, Nader was on the ballot in two lines in New York state in 2004, so a potential challenge to his petition would still have left him on the ballot. He was the Independence Party’s nominee in New York in 2004, plus he did his own separate petition just in case he didn’t get the Independence Party nomination.

On August 21, the California Assembly passed SB 1233, would requires circulators of initiative, referendum, and recall petitions to have in their possession while they are working copies of their petitions in the same languages (other than English) that are sometimes printed on ballots. In Los Angeles County, that will mean eight sets of petitions. See this story. Proponents of these types of petition would also be required to tell the Secretary of State which counties they will be working in, before starting to circulate the petition.

The bill had passed the State Senate on May 29, but it has been amended since then, and must return to the Senate.