On Friday, May 18, a three-judge U.S. District Court heard Kostick v Nago, 1:12-cv-184. This is the case that challenges Hawaii’s legislative redistricting. The plan removed from the census data all the college students who had not lived in Hawaii before they came to Hawaii to attend school, and it also removed all the military personnel who had not lived in Hawaii before they were assigned to military bases in Hawaii.

The state defends the plan by saying there is a procedure by which these students and military can fill out a form, saying they intend to remain in Hawaii in the future.

According to this story, at least one of the three judges expressed grave reluctance to postpone the August 11 primary. Filing for that primary starts on June 5.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy DeGiusti has set a June 7 hearing date in Libertarian Party of Oklahoma v Ziriax. This is the ballot access case filed by the Libertarian and Green Parties of Oklahoma. Briefs, or at least statements, will be filed in advance of that hearing date. The two political parties will probably argue that the case is ready for summary judgement on the constitutionality of the March 1 petition deadline.

Last year California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill to make it illegal for anyone to pay registration workers on a per-registration card basis. However, the same bill has been re-introduced. Assemblymember Richard Pan, and Senator Lou Correa, have amended a non-election law bill that already passed the Assembly so that it imposes the ban. It is AB 2058, and will probably have a hearing in the Senate Elections Committee in June. If passed, it would take effect on January 1, 2013.

The only way qualified parties can remain ballot-qualified in California is by having registration equal to 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, which currently is 103,004 members (however, this doesn’t go into effect until November 2014). Neither the Libertarian Party, nor the Peace & Freedom Party, have that many registered members. They only feasible way for parties to increase their registration substantially has always been to pay people on a per-registration card basis. Persuading strangers on the street to register into a minor party is very difficult work, and paying on a per-registration basis is the only realistic way to substantially increase a party’s registration.

The reason for the bill is that recently, Republican Party activists hired a company to increase the number of registered Republicans, and the people who were hired committed fraud. It does not necessarily follow that the fraud would have been prevented if the ban on paying per-registration card had been in effect.