On December 22, the Alaska Supreme Court issued a unanimous 24-page opinion, agreeing with the lower court, in Miller v Treadwell, S-14112.  This is the case in which Joe Miller, Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Alaska, had argued that many write-in votes for Lisa Murkowski should not be counted.  The lower court had interpreted the law not to require perfect spelling.  But the lower court had also ruled that write-in votes are invalid when the voter forgets, or doesn’t know, to fill in the oval next to the name written in.  The Alaska Supreme Court agreed with the lower court on both those points, and on all the other points.  Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

The decision is heavy on good rhetoric about respecting the intent of each voter.  The part of the decision that disallows write-ins when the voter didn’t fill in the oval is inconsistent with that rhetoric, but the Court didn’t seem to recognize the contradiction.

On the afternoon of December 22, the California Secretary of State posted the requirements for candidates to run in the special election for State Senate, 17th district, in northern Los Angeles County.  She says a candidate who does not wish to pay the filing fee may avoid the fee by collecting 3,000 signatures of registered voters on December 22 and December 23.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1974 that the U.S. Constitution requires an alternative to filing fees, at least for poor candidates.  And in 1974, the California Supreme Court ruled in Donovan v Brown that an alternative to the filing fee must be available to all candidates, rich or poor.  A petitioning period of one and one-half days obviously does not satisfy due process.  It is unparalleled in U.S. history for any state to require a candidate to collect 3,000 valid signatures in a single legislative district in just one and one-half days.

The vacancy was created when State Senator George Runner resigned on December 21.  The election is on February 15.

Nate Silver’s 538 blog has posted the 2010 population of some U.S. House districts, those with the largest population in the nation, and those with the smallest.  The two most populous districts are Nevada’s 3rd, with 1,002,482 residents; and Utah’s 3rd, with 989,325.  The least populous districts are Louisiana’s 2nd, with 511,490; and Rhode Island’s First, with 516,796.  See here.