The Washington Times has this interesting story about independent candidates in China, and ballot access. China does have some elections for local office but generally tries to keep all candidates off the ballot except those approved by the Communist Party.
On June 23, the Ninth Circuit determined that the lawsuit Washington State Republican Party v Washington State Grange will be heard by Judges Raymond C. Fisher, Dorothy Nelson, and Pamela Ann Rymer. Normally no U.S. Court of Appeals identifies which judges will hear a particular case this early in the process. However, the political parties had asked for the same three judges who had had this same case back in 2006. Washington state and the Washington State Grange, on the other side, did not oppose that idea.
Back on August 22, 2006, that panel had invalidated the Washington state top-two system. Then the case had gone to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in March 2008 that the system wasn’t necessarily unconstitutional on freedom of association grounds, and ruled that questoin could only be determined after the system had been used. That is why the case is still alive. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 had also declined to consider the ballot access and trademark issues, because the lower courts had not ruled on those two issues.
All three judges are southern Californians. Judge Nelson is a Carter appointee, Judge Rymer is a Bush Jr. appointee, and Judge Fisher is a Clinton appointee.
On June 28, Americans Elect’s web page posted a new national signature count for its ballot access petitions. The new figure is 1,348,312. The last posting, five days ago, had been 1,262,665. As before, the vast majority of these signatures are from California.
On June 28, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, deleted funds from the state budget that were intended to help pay for administration of the Republican Party primary. See this story. The Republican Party will now raise the $1,500,000 that the primary costs from private sources.
Late in 2010, Dallas County, Texas, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal in Dallas County v Texas Democratic Party, 10-755. The issue involves the federal Voting Rights Act. The 3-judge U.S. District Court had ruled that Dallas County is required to pre-clear changes in the operation of its vote-counting machines. The Democratic Party had sued over the use of those machines, because the party feels that some voters are tricked into thinking they voted a straight-ticket vote, when actually they hadn’t.
The U.S. Supreme Court has now adjourned for the summer and won’t have a conference until September 26, 2011. However, the Court never disposed of the Dallas appeal. It had been on conference on January 21, March 18, and May 26, but each time the Court didn’t decide whether to hear it or not. In the meantime, the Justice Department has already pre-cleared the matter, so it is odd that the Court still hasn’t disposed of this case.
