On February 27, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Greene v Bartlett, 11-868, which challenged the number of signatures required for an independent candidate for U.S. House in North Carolina. The requirement is 4% of the number of registered voters. The law also requires a filing fee of 2% of the annual salary of the office. The requirement is generally between 16,000 and 20,000 signatures.

That law is so strict, no independent candidate for U.S. House has ever appeared on a government-printed ballot in North Carolina, and government-printed ballots have existed in that state since 1901. However, in 2010, the Service Employees International Union successfully completed the petition for a candidate who then refused to run, so the state seized on this incident as evidence that the requirement is not impossible to fulfill. No one has ever revealed how much that petition cost, but it was probably at least $50,000.

The U.S. Supreme Court said in 1974 in Storer v Brown, and again in 1977 in Mandel v Bradley, that ballot access laws that are so difficult, they are seldom used are probably too difficult and should be struck down. No one knows why the Court doesn’t take ballot cases in which the lower court disregards these precedents.

On February 10, the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department formally withdrew its objection to the switch from partisan city elections, to non-partisan elections, in Kinston, North Carolina.

The voters of Kinston had voted to start using non-partisan city elections, but the Voting Rights Section had at first refused to approve the change. The Voting Rights Section says it changed its mind because of the increase in the black population of Kinston. The Voting Rights Section says now believes that Kinston black voters will be able to elect their preferred candidates, whether the city uses non-partisan elections or partisan elections. Thanks to TexasRedistricting blog for this news.

Two Pennsylvania Democratic Congressmen, Jason Altmire and Mark Critz, are running against each other in the April 24th primary because Pennsylvania’s new districts put both of them in the same district, the 12th district in the western end of the state. On February 21, supporters of Congressman Critz filed objections to the primary petition of Congressman Altmire. The petition challenge will be heard in Commonwealth Court in Pittsburgh on March 2, at 9:30 a.m. The law requires primary candidates for U.S. House to submit 1,000 valid signatures. Altimire submitted 1,651 signatures.

The objectors say that 385 signatures were collected by a circulator who doesn’t live in the 12th district. The objectors say that certain other signatures on the petition are forgeries. And, of course, the objectors say that some of the signers aren’t registered voters, which is invariably true for all petitions that require a substantial number of signatures. The case is In re Nomination Petition of James Altmire, 114 M.D. 2012.

Pennsylvania and California are the only states that still enforce in-district residency requirements on petitioners. The Pennsylvania in-district residency requirement for circulators was held unconstitutional in 2002 by a U.S. District Court (Morrill v Weaver), but the state courts say that decision doesn’t matter because it only relates to independent candidate petitions, not primary election petitions. Residency requirements for petitioners have been held unconstitutional in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.