On March 7, attorneys for the Oklahoma State Election Board filed this brief in Libertarian Party of Oklahoma v Ziriax, western district, 5:12-cv-119.
This case already has had a status conference, and the judge had urged both sides to settle the case, which challenges the March 1 petition deadline for new party petitions. The Libertarian Party had then suggested either a 30% cut in the required number of signatures (to compensate for the fact that the 2011 bill, moving the deadline from May 1 to March 1, deprived petitioning parties of two months of prime petitioning time, the months of March and April), or extending the deadline this year to May 1.

The state rejected this attempt to settle and did not make a counter settlement suggestion. Instead the state’s brief argues that the existing law is constitutional. It also suggests that perhaps the Libertarian Party petition submitted on February 29 might possibly have enough valid signatures, and therefore the lawsuit, as to the Libertarian Party, is moot. The state’s brief ignores the party’s offer to nominate by convention, thus saving the state the expense of printing up Libertarian Party primary ballots, and eliminating the need for such an early petition deadline.

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.