As noted earlier, the Illinois League of Women Voters has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that gerrymandering violates the First Amendment. The League’s case is Illinois League of Women Voters v Quinn, 11-943. The lower courts had rejected the League’s argument.

The state’s response had been due on March 1, but the state has asked for more time to respond, and the Court has extended the state’s deadline to April 2.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled previously that gerrymandering doesn’t violate the Fourteenth Amendment, but has not ever heard a case on whether it violates the First Amendment.

On March 6, the Indiana legislature passed SB 233, which mostly reverses last year’s law on the subject of one-candidate elections. Last year the legislature passed a bill that removes local offices from the general election ballot when only one candidate filed. That law turned out to be unpopular.

SB 233 says that all offices will be on the ballot, even if there is only one person running, unless the local election board rules unanimously against putting such an office on the ballot.

Ohio held its primary for all office on March 6. It is the earliest congressional primary for any state, in 2012. Some Libertarian and Green Party congressional candidates were on their own party’s primary ballot for various U.S. House seats. Others had write-in campaigns in their own primaries, because they did not succeed in getting the needed signatures to appear on their own party’s primary ballots.

One Libertarian, Chris Kalla, did receive enough write-in votes in his primary to advance to the November election. He was running in the 4th U.S. House district. He needed 25, and the Secretary of State’s web page says he received 26.

However, the three minor party members seeking a U.S. Senate nomination did not receive enough votes for nomination. They needed 500 write-ins. Libertarian member John Fockler got 407 write-ins. Two Greens were also running for U.S. Senate as write-ins in the Green primary. Joseph DeMare got 191 and Anita Rios got 43. It is possible that not all ballots containing write-in votes have been counted yet, and also some provisional ballots haven’t been counted yet either, so there may be a slight chance that eventually Fockler will be credited with 500 write-ins.