On January 13, U.S. District Court Judge John A. Gibney issued a 22-page opinion in Perry v Judd, 3:11-cv-856. He refused to order the Virginia Board of Elections to place any more presidential candidates on the Republican presidential primary ballot, for the sole reason that they filed the lawsuit too late. However, he said the residency requirement for circulators “is highly unlikely to withstand the First Amendment challenge.” Also, “the court agrees with the rationale in Nader v Brewer (Nader v Brewer is a 9th circuit opinion in which the Arizona ban on out-of-state circulators was struck down).”

On page 17 of the order, the judge said “The Board contends that the residency requirement is necessary to protect the Commonwealth’s ability to subpoena petition circulators…The Board has done nothing to demonstrate how such a requirement would fail, beyond stating that ‘direct subpoena authority is more effective than an undertaking to be subject to out-of-state jurisdiction.’ Moreover, the Court is skeptical that subpoena power over out-of-state circulators is a compelling state interest — the critical signature on the petition is not that of the circulator, but that of the voter. For these reasons, the Court believes that the residency requirement for petition circulators will likely be declared unconstitutional, and that the plaintiffs will ultimately prevail.”

The January 13 Birmingham News has this editorial, calling on the Alabama legislature to pass one or both of Senator Cam Ward’s ballot access reform bills. The major newspapers in Alabama have consistently been helpful on this issue. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

On January 10, the California Senate Elections Committee unanimously passed AB 1413, which makes several changes to the “top-two” system. The worst change is that write-in space will no longer be printed on general election ballots for Congress and partisan state office.

California will almost certainly join Louisiana as one of only two states that has ever had write-in space on general election ballots, but then eliminated them, and now doesn’t permit them. Assuming the bill passes, there will be six states that ban write-ins in the general election. Four of them, Nevada, Hawaii, South Dakota and Oklahoma, have never permitted write-ins.

The Ohio legislature banned write-ins in 1947, but in 1968 a 3-judge U.S. District Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution protects write-ins, and restored them in Ohio. The Florida legislature banned write-ins in 1977, but in 1979 the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the State Constitution protects them, and restored them.

Former State Senator Steve Peace, a proponent of the top-two system, testified at the hearing that the Committee should amend the bill and restore write-ins. However, the Committee did not accept his advice. Assemblyman Paul Fong, author of AB 1413, has said that he may introduce a separate bill to restore write-in space, but one wonders why, if he supports write-ins, he didn’t just amend AB 1413 to permit write-ins. Charlie Munger, a multi-millionaire who has been paying the legal bills for the defense of the top-two system, testified for the bill.

The California Senate Elections Committee has five members, but only two members were in attendance to hear the testimony. The other three Senators made an appearance after the testimony was over, and voted for the bill without having heard the witnesses. The bill now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Another change the bill makes is to change ballot labels. Existing law says the ballot should say, after the name of each candidate, “My party preference is the (whichever) party.” The bill shortens labels so that the ballot will say, “Party preference: (whichever) party.”