On October 6, the final brief was filed in the 10th circuit in Constitution Party of Kansas v Kobach, 11-3152. This last brief is the Constitution Party’s rebuttal. The issue is whether Kansas must permit voters to register into parties that are not ballot-qualified, but which are organized in Kansas and have placed candidates on the Kansas ballot.

Currently, Kansas is one of only two states that have registration by party, and have neither a blank line in the political party area of the form, nor a procedure for an unqualified party to ever be listed on the voter registration form. Kansas is in the 10th circuit, and in 1984 the 10th circuit that Colorado must have some means for a voters to register into an unqualified party.

On August 21, 2011, Steve Rankin of Jackson, Mississippi, died of cancer. He was an expert in major party primaries, especially on the details of which voters can participate in those primaries. He believed that parties should decide for themselves who should vote in their primaries. He kept in touch with all legal developments concerning this issue, and was a frequent source of news for this blog, and a frequent commenter for quite a few years.

According to this story, Americans Elect has begun circulating the party petition in Rhode Island, which requires 17,115 valid signatures. The party petition procedure has only existed since 1994. It has never been used, except by the Moderate Party in 2010. Thanks to Ken Block for the link.