At the end of May 2011, the Socialist Party launched a petition drive to get itself on the Michigan ballot. Probably 2,000 signatures have been collected so far. The law requires 32,261 valid signatures. However, the law also requires already-qualified parties to poll only 16,083 votes in November 2010 in order to stay on the ballot.

The Socialist Party believes it can at least get 16,083 valid signatures by the petition deadline, July 19, 2012. If so, it plans to file a lawsuit, alleging that the existing law discriminates against new parties, and in favor of old parties, by requiring twice as much support for a newly qualifying party to get on the ballot as it requires an old party to remain on. The U.S. Supreme Court 1968 decision Williams v Rhodes suggested that states cannot discriminate against old parties. Also, the four concurring justices in Communist Party of Indiana v Whitcomb, in 1974, said, “In Williams v Rhodes, this Court held that a discriminatory preference for established parties can justified only by a ‘compelling state interest’.” The Indiana ruling struck down an Indiana loyalty oath for political parties, but Indiana exempted the old parties from the oath. The concurring justices said the Indiana oath was unconstitutional because the law exempted old parties. The other five justices struck down the Indiana oath on First Amendment grounds.

In November 2010, Alaska election officials determined that Lisa Murkowski had been re-elected to the U.S. Senate on write-in votes. Her Republican opponent, Joe Miller, then filed a lawsuit, arguing that the election tally erroneously included votes for Murkowski that were either invalid, or at least had been cast by voters who should not have been allowed to vote. His lawsuit could not have succeeded on the write-in spelling issue alone, because the tally showed that Murkowski had won even if misspelled write-ins had been discarded. Miller lost the lawsuit.

On June 24, the same state court assessed court costs of $17,000 against Miller. See this story. Miller may appeal. His lawsuit did perform a public service by clarifying the standards for counting write-ins, and Alaska state courts are forbidden to assess court costs against the losing side in lawsuits, if the lawsuit performed a public service.

On June 23, North Carolina Governor Bev Purdue vetoed HB 351, the bill to require voters at the polls to show government-issued photo-ID. See this story. Governor Purdue is the third Governor in 2011 to have vetoed a bill of this type; such bills were also vetoed in Minnesota and Missouri. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.