Matthew Cardinale, a reporter for the Atlanta Progressive News, is authoring a series of articles about Georgia’s ballot access laws. Here is the first article. Very few people in Georgia understand that state’s ballot access laws, and even political reporters and bloggers frequently make factual errors when they describe those laws. But Cardinale’s article is perfectly accurate.
On September 28, South Whitehall Township in eastern Pennsylvania said it will no longer require permits before property owners can put up lawn signs on their own property, advocating a vote for any particular party or candidate. The township had been sued in federal court by a Democratic Party nominee for requiring $5 permits. See this story. Thanks to Larry Otter for the link.
On October 1, a Virginia state circuit court in Richmond granted a preliminary injunction, allowing the group called “The Know Campaign” to obtain the list of which voters voted in the last election. “The Know Campaign” is a non-partisan group that wishes to increase voter turnout. It believes that if ordinary voters know that whether or not they vote becomes a public record, they will be more likely to vote.
The list of which voters cast a ballot in the last election is not the same as the list of registered voters. Some years ago a Virginia court had ruled that the list of who voted cannot be limited just to political parties and candidates, and ruled that Political Action Groups can see that list. The legislature then expanded the list of groups that can see the list to include PAC’s. Earlier this year the legislature considered expanding the list further. The Senate passed the bill, but then the House completely altered the bill’s impact, and ruled that no one can see the list. The Senate didn’t approve that version of the bill, so no legislative action was taken.
The lawsuit is The Know Campaign v Rodrigues, cl-09-005389-00. UPDATE: here is the court order.
On October 4, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued this 7-page opinion in In re: the Nomination Petitions and Papers of Carl Stevenson, 54 MAP 2010. Carl Stevenson is an independent candidate for the legislature. The issue is whether a Pennsylvania law making it illegal to circulate a petition outside the circulator’s home district is constitutional. The Commonwealth Court had ruled that the law is constitutional, and had invalidated the petition because so many of the petitions had been circulated by someone who lives in another Pennsylvania legislative district. UPDATE: see this commentary about the case.
The Supreme Court sent the case back and told the Commonwealth Court to finish the process of validating all signatures. There is a possibility that Stevenson doesn’t have enough valid signatures, even if the signatures collected by the out-of-district circulators are counted. If Stevenson doesn’t have enough valid signatures even when those are counted, no court in this case then needs to decide the constitutional issue. But if Stevenson does have enough signatures, then the state courts in this case must grapple with the constitutional issue.
It is true that the Commonwealth Court had superficially upheld the residency requirement, but the State Supreme Court order seems to think that the Commonwealth Court didn’t really settle the issue. The Supreme Court order says, “Neither the lower court nor appellees (i.e., the challengers) have forwarded any substantive justification of the court’s rejection of appellant’s First Amendment argument…The Court never offered any substantive evaluation of First Amendment principles to support its rejection of appellants’s argument, and the cases it cites likewise do not engage the merits of appellant’s First Amendment argument…The Court, in short…didn’t engage his arguments in meaningful fashion…There is nothing in the record or the pleadings below providing a basis for this Court to affirm the existing decision removing appellant from the ballot.”
The last paragraph of the Supreme Court asks the lower court to hold an “immediate hearing” with the word “immediate” in bold type. The Commonwealth Court has already set a hearing for Thursday, October 7, at 1:30 p.m. in Harrisburg.
On September 29, the voter-plaintiffs and candidate-plaintiffs in Field v Bowen filed an appeal in the California State Court of Appeals. The case number in the First District is A129829. This is the case over two details of the California top-two law, the ban on counting write-ins, and the discriminatory provision which lets some candidates have their party preference on the ballot, but denies this ability to other candidates. On September 30 the State Court of Appeals refused to stay the lower court denial of injunctive relief. No court has yet made any ruling on the merits of the case.
