According to this story, Newt Gingrich qualified for the Utah Republican presidential primary in March, by paying a filing fee of $500. But the check bounded. The story says Utah elections officials will not remove Gingrich from the ballot, provided he pays the fee by April 20. The Utah presidential primaries are on June 26, the latest in the nation this year.

The same lenient treatment was given to Jesse Jackson in 1984, when his check to pay the West Virginia filing fee also bounced. West Virginia’s Secretary of State permitted Jackson to send a new check, and he did appear on the West Virginia Democratic presidential primary ballot. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

On April 10, the Missouri Senate Elections Committee unanimously passed HB 1236, the bill that improves ballot access for newly-qualifying parties. The bill had already passed the House. It fixes the typographical error that forces groups to list their candidates for presidential elector on their petition if they intend to run a presidential nominee that year. The error is bizarre, because such a group doesn’t need to list its candidates for other office on the petition.

On April 10, California Superior Court Lawrence John Appel, of Alameda County, heard oral arguments in Rubin v Bowen, the case filed last year by the Peace & Freedom, Libertarian, and Green Parties. The judge won’t issue any injunction against the operation of Proposition 14, the top-two system. However, even though he feels the law is facially constitutional, he is allowing the plaintiffs to amend their complaint and make an as-applied challenge. The next status conference is on July 10. By then the results of the June 5, 2012 California primary will be known.

The judge was very familiar with all the relevant cases. He knew, without attorneys for either side mentioning it, that the March 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision Washington State Grange v Washington State Republican Party contains a footnote eleven (the judge mentioned the footnote by number) saying the Court’s decision does not resolve, or deal with, the ballot access issue. The 9th circuit decision of January 19, 2012, in that same case, erroneously said the U.S. Supreme Court had already ruled that top-two does not violate any of the ballot access precedents. The 9th circuit judges knew less about the U.S. Supreme Court output on this than Judge Appel does.

The April 10 hearing was the first time that any court has held oral arguments over whether top-two systems violate the voting rights of minor party members and voters. The previous litigation over top-two has either dealt with two particular aspects of California’s top-two system (labels on the ballot and write-ins), or has dealt only with freedom of association. Attorneys for the minor parties argued that the 9th circuit 2012 decision does not control this case because: (1) California’s primary is in early June whereas Washington state’s is in late August; (2) the California Constitution gives greater protection to free speech rights than the U.S. Constitution does. Attorneys for California, and for the intervenors who support Proposition 14, denied that the California Constitution gives any more rights than the U.S. Constitution does in the elections context.