On November 17, a group of voters filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, arguing that the New York legislature will very likely fail to complete the redistricting process for U.S. House and state legislative districts, and asking the Court to handle redistricting. The New York Senate is controlled by Republicans and the Assembly by Democrats. See this story. The case has been assigned to Judge Dora Irizarry, a Bush Jr. appointee.

Here is the complaint. The case is Favors v Cuomo, cv11-5632, eastern district. Most of the plaintiffs are leaders is community organizations. They say that it is vital that the members and activists of their organizations engage in the political process, but because the redistricting process is so far from being complete, they are stymied. Also, one of the plaintiffs wishes to run for the legislature in 2012, but with no districts even close to being in place, he cannot determine whether he has a suitable district to run in.

The lawsuit also points out that last year, the New York legislature passed a law requiring that prisoners be counted, for redistricting, at the address where they lived before they went to prison. The lawsuit explains that the process of adjusting the population data to comply with this law is a time-consuming process that is not progressing fast enough. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link to the complaint.

On November 18, the New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission heard a challenge to whether President Obama’s name should remain on the New Hampshire Democratic Party presidential primary ballot. See this story. According to the story, at least two New Hampshire state representatives, Harry Accornero and Susan DeLemus, supported the challenge. However, the Commission voted 5-0 to retain Obama’s name on the ballot.

The story says that the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office advised the Commission that it has no power to evaluate a challenge to a presidential candidate’s ballot status, if the candidate paid the filing fee. The Attorney General’s position seems to agree with a California State Court of Appeals decision of October 25, 2010, in Keyes v Bowen, which said a California Secretary of State has no discretion to evaluate the qualifications of a presidential nominee, and “must (the word is italicized in the opinion) place on the ballot the names of the several political parties’ candidates.”

The challenges to Obama’s ballot status have larger legal implications than are usually realized. If state officials must place the names of presidential candidates on various ballots, that strengthens the precedents established by John Anderson, Robert La Follette, Theodore Roosevelt, Gus Hall, Lyndon LaRouche, and David Duke, over the last hundred years, that just because a presidential candidate appeared on a presidential primary ballot, there is no authority to keep him or her off general election ballots under a different label. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

As reported earlier, a lawsuit challenging the Vermont June petition deadline for independent candidates will go forward, if enough contributions are pledged to help pay the cost of the transcript. As of mid-afternoon November 18, $865 has been pledged. To pledge, e-mail richardwinger@yahoo.com. Thank you.