The 8th circuit will hold an oral argument in Libertarian Party of North Dakota v Jaeger, 10-3212, although the exact date hasn’t been set yet. It will be in late March or early April. This is the case that challenges the North Dakota law that does not permit a qualified party to run candidates for the legislature in November, unless approximately 10% to 15% of all the voters who show up to vote in the primary choose that party’s primary ballot. Because the overwhelming majority of primary voters, in North Dakota and generally, are more interested in voting in the major party primaries, in effect this means that minor parties can never have nominees for the legislature on the November ballot.

No minor party has appeared on a November ballot in North Dakota, for a state legislative race, with the party label, since 1976, when the American Party managed to attract an usually high vote into its primary.

March will be a very important month for constitutional ballot access lawsuits. The hearing in the 3rd circuit against the Pennsylvania system of putting minor parties and independent candidates at risk of paying fees of up to $110,000, if their statewide petition doesn’t have enough valid signatures, will be in the middle of March. And in March, the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to say if it will hear Ralph Nader’s ballot access case from Hawaii.

The Omaha World-Herald has this story about the bill in the Nebraska legislature to eliminate the ability of each U.S. House district in Nebraska to choose its own presidential elector. The bill to return Nebraska to a winner-take-all system is likely to pass this year, according to the story. The bill is LB 21 and it will be heard in committee on February 23.

The same committee will also hear LB 367 on February 23. That is the bill promoted by the Commission on Uniform State Laws to require each party to submit two candidates for presidential elector for each slot, one elector and one alternate. Then, if the elector votes for someone his or her state party didn’t wish, the elector is deemed to have resigned, and the alternate becomes the elector instead.

Five Republican state legislators in South Dakota have introduced SB 175, which requires political parties to permit independent voters to vote in their primaries. Currently, state law gives each party the choice of whether to let independents vote in its primaries or not. Only the Democratic and Republican Parties are ballot-qualified, and neither of them now permits independents to vote in their primaries. The bill has a hearing in the Senate Local Government Committee on February 9. UPDATE: the hearing was postponed until February 14.