On February 8, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson ruled that Virginia’s in-district residency requirement for petitioners is unconstitutional. He also issued an injunction against enforcing the requirement in future elections. The case is Lux v Judd, e.d., civ 3:10-cv-482. The case had been filed in 2010. Here is the 18-page opinion.

This is the first Virginia ballot access law to be held unconstitutional since 2001, when the Libertarian Party sued Virginia over a law that said the names of qualified parties should be printed on the November ballot next to the names of their nominees, but the party labels of unqualified parties could not be printed on the November ballot, except for President.

The Lux case is the first ballot access case handled by the James Bopp law firm of Indiana. That firm is extremely active in election law, but its other cases have dealt with campaign finance, and also privacy for petition signers.

The decision says in footnote 8 that no opinion is being expressed about the constitutionality of Virginia’s ban on out-of-state circulators.

On February 8, a U.S. District Court in Cincinnati issued a 93-page opinion in Hunter v Hamilton County Board of Elections, 1:10-cv-820, a case over whether certain provisional ballots should have been counted in Hamilton County in the November 2010 election. The court ruled that some of the provisional ballots should be counted. The election between the Republican and Democratic candidates for Juvenile Court Judge had been so close, there is some probability that the uncounted provisional ballots will determine who won.

Ohio law says that provision ballots cast in the wrong precinct should not be counted. However, Hamilton County elections officials nevertheless counted some provisional ballots that had been cast in the wrong precinct, but wouldn’t count certain other provisional ballots that had been cast in the wrong precinct. The votes had issue had been cast at locations in which several precincts were voting in the same building. Polling place officials had misinformed the voters about where to deposit their ballots. The decision says for procedural reasons, the court is unable to rule on the constitutionality of the law that says provisional ballots must be cast in the proper precinct. But, relying on Equal Protection, the court orders the votes to be counted. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

Four Georgia State Senators, all Republicans, have introduced SB 377. It would require that no one could sign any type of ballot access petition, without first showing the circulator a government-photo ID. The circulator of the petition would be required to certify under penalty of perjury that everyone who signed his or her petition showed one of these: (1) a Georgia drivers license; (2) a Georgia state ID card; (3) a U.S. passport; (4) a government employee photo-ID; (5) a U.S. military ID; (6) a tribal photo-ID.

The four sponsors are Senators Buddy Carter of Pooler, Tommie Williams of Lyons, Joshua McKoon of Columbus, and Judson Hill of Marietta. In Georgia, candidates running in Democratic and Republican primaries never need to circulate any petition in order to get on the ballot, assuming they pay the filing fee.

Such a law, if enacted, would make it far more difficult to obtain signatures. Many signatures are collected in parks and beaches, where many of the signers may not have their wallets or purses with them. Furthermore, the law would slow the petitioning process, and also make it more difficult to persuade people to sign. Also, thousands of people don’t possess any of those documents and would lose their constitutional right to sign a petition. As far as is known, there has never been a law like this enacted in any state. Thanks to Garland Favorito for this news.