Leslie Graves and Geoff Pallay, researchers at Ballotpedia, have published this report on the lack of voter choices on the ballot for state legislative races.  The report says 32.7% of legislative districts have no contest between the two major parties this year.

Ballot Access News published a somewhat similar study in the October 1, 2010 print issue, and found 36.1% of the races lack a contest between a Democrat and Republican.  The difference between the two studies is because of different treatment of multi-member districts.  The Ballotpedia study considered a district to have a Democratic-Republican contest if it elects, for example, 5 members, and there are 5 Democrats and 1 Republican running.  But the Ballot Access News study considered an example like that to lack Democratic-Republican competition for 4 seats.

An award-winning documentary film “Gerrymandering” opens in movie theaters across the nation on October 15.  It is directed by Jeff Reichert, and is sharply critical of the method that most states use to draw boundaries for U.S. House districts, and state legislative districts.

The campaign in favor of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, www.yes20no27.org, has secured permission to e-mail DVDs of the film to California voters.  The campaign in favor of keeping the Commission, and for expanding it to include U.S. House districts, has already mailed DVDs to many voters in California.  For example, it appears all registered Republicans in San Francisco have already received a free copy of the DVD.  Any California voter may request a free DVD of the film by e-mailing to “email@yes20no27.org”.  The two dueling ballot measures in California, on redistricting, are Proposition 20 and Proposition 27.  One needs to know this to be able to read that e-mail address, so as not to be confused between zero and the letter “o”.  Thanks to Eric Garris for this news.

On October 4, an Illinois State Court of Appeals upheld a decision of a lower state court, keeping the Constitution Party statewide slate of nominees off the ballot.  The State Court of Appeals says the slate has 24,935 valid signatures.  25,000 are needed.  Here is the six-page decision, Constitution Party v State Board of Elections, 1-10-2813, First Appellate District.

The Court upheld an unclear Illinois law that seems to say that if anyone circulates a petition for any partisan office during the primary season, that person is barred from collecting signatures for any independent or minor party candidate in the general election, even if the two petitions were for entirely different office.  If the court had struck down that law, or interpreted it differently, the statewide slate would have had 25,017 valid signatures.  The party may appeal that to the State Supreme Court.  The State Supreme Court earlier this year put a Republican candidate for the legislature on the ballot, even though he had voted in the Democratic primary last year.  The Constitution Party will be able to argue that it is absurd to let someone run for office even though he or she had that connection with a different party in the recent past, and at the same time disallow anyone from petitioning for two different parties in the same year.