On September 8, U.S. Senator Roland Burris asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court opinion that says the only candidates on the ballot in this year’s special election for U.S. Senate should be the same candidates who are running for the six-year term.  See this story.  The case was Judge v Quinn, but is now styled Burris v Judge.  The original lawsuit had been filed in 2009 by Illinois voters who asked the federal courts to hold a special election for the two-month term that runs from November 2, 2010 until early January 2011.  Burris intervened in that case.  Here is Burris’s Emergency Application.

After the 7th circuit had ruled that Illinois must hold such a special election, the U.S. District Court had somewhat arbitrarily ruled that the nominees on the November 2010 ballot for the full 6-year term should also be the nominees listed on the ballot for the special election.  Burris is not running for the full term, but he would like to be the Democratic nominee for the short term.  The U.S. District Court order, in effect, took the choice of a nominee away from the political parties, and also the voters.  Burris was unable to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in this case until September 8, because it was only on September 8 that the 7th circuit denied him any relief.  Burris also suggests an alternate form of relief, that the special election be canceled.

On September 9, the 10th circuit agreed with the U.S. District Court that neither Alan Woodruff, nor Daniel Fenton, should be on the November ballot for U.S. House in New Mexico, even though two particular New Mexico ballot access laws relating to them were held unconstitutional earlier by a U.S. District Court.

Alan Woodruff is the Green Party’s nominee in the First District.  Co-plaintiff Daniel Fenton’s candidacy is vague; his complaint never said whether he wanted to run as an independent candidate, or the candidate of a minor party.  Fenton is not registered to vote.  All of New Mexico’s election laws assume that candidates are registered voters, and there are no procedures on how an unregistered voter may run for Congress.

Woodruff was kept off the ballot by the Secretary of State because the Green Party is not a qualified political party, because it failed to poll at least one-half of 1% of the vote for President in 2008, and also failed to poll at least one-half of 1% for Governor in 2006.

On December 11, 2009, the U.S. District Court in this case, Woodruff v Herrera, had ruled that it is unconstitutional for New Mexico to require candidates for Congress to be registered voters.  The U.S. District Court had also ruled that New Mexico laws on which addresses signers should list on petitions are unconstitutionally vague (one New Mexico law says they should write down their residence address, but another New Mexico law says they should write down the address at which they are registered to vote).  The state did not appeal either of these rulings.  But the U.S. District Court had said that just because two laws are unconstitutional, it does not follow logically that either candidate should be placed on the ballot automatically.  The 10th circuit agreed, saying Woodruff should have seen to it that the Green Party completed the petition to re-qualify itself, and that Fenton should have either submitted an independent candidate petition (if he wanted to be an independent candidate), or he should have submitted a candidate petition if he wanted to be the nominee of a qualified minor party.  This year, the qualified minor parties in New Mexico are the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Independent Party.  None of those parties has any nominees for anything this year, except the Libertarian Party has one nominee for state legislature.