Judge Joseph Lodge, who is a Superior Court Judge in Coconino County, Arizona, will seek re-election as the Libertarian nominee. First he must win the Libertarian primary, but he only needs 15 write-in votes to achieve that, assuming no one else receives more write-ins. No one’s name will be printed on the ballot for that office in the Libertarian primary.

Lodge is a Democrat, but he was removed from the Democratic primary ballot because his petition didn’t specify which seat he was running for. He did have enough valid signatures. See this story. The person who challenged him, Cathleen Nichols, is a Justice of the Peace and also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Superior Court Judge.

Large-population counties in Arizona do not have partisan elections for Superior Court Judge, but smaller counties, like Coconino County, do. The primary is August 28. Arizona already has one other Superior Court Judge who is a Libertarian. He is John Buttrick, but he is in Maricopa County, which does not have partisan elections for Superior Court Judge.

On July 13, U.S. District Court Judge William Zloch issued a procedural opinion in LaCasa v Townsley, the case over whether non-Democrats should be allowed to vote in the August 2012 primary in Florida for one particular partisan office, State Attorney in Miami-Dade County. The order says the original complaint is flawed, because the plaintiffs didn’t sue the Secretary of State; they just sued the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections. The order instructs the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint. Here is the order.

The case is still being expedited. The next oral argument will be on July 23 at 10 a.m. The reason the plaintiffs want non-Democrats to be able to vote in the Democratic primary is that the only two candidates who filed to be on the primary ballot are both Democrats, and there are no independent candidates in the race. There are two write-in candidates in the general election, so under Florida law, as interpreted by the Secretary of State, only registered Democrats may vote in the Democratic primary. If the two write-in candidates had not filed, Florida law says that because only Democrats are running for the office, all voters may vote in the Democratic primary for that office.

On July 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, upheld the Postal Service regulation that bans obtaining signatures on interior postal sidewalks. The case is Initiative & Referendum Institute v U.S. Postal Service, 10-5337. The regulation was created in 2000 and this case had been filed in 2000. Here is the decision.

The opinion is written by Judge Thomas B. Griffith, a Bush Jr. appointee. It upholds the regulation partly because, in 2010, the Postal Service amended the regulation and said that individuals are free to stand on interior postal sidewalks and ask passers-by to sign a petition. But, the act of signing is not permitted on the sidewalk. Instead, the passer-by must be told that if he or she wishes to sign the petition, he or she must go to an adjoining area where the signature can be affixed to the petition. In effect, this virtually requires that petitioners work in teams, one to stand on the interior post office sidewalk and solicit the signature, and another to be stationed nearby, but off the post office sidewalk. Obviously this is very inefficient.

Judge Janice Rogers Brown, another Bush Jr. appointee, signed the Griffith opinion, and yet wrote separately to say the policy makes no sense. She concludes her separate opinion to say, “The Postal Service may conclude, on further reflection, that the present compromise causes more confusion and disruption than it abates. In that case, the Service may decide to do what is sensible and permit the entire signature-gathering encounter — for that would surely not be unreasonable.” The third judge in this case, Karen Henderson, a Bush Sr. appointee, merely signed the Griffith opinion and did not write separately.