On July 15, a U.S. District Court in South Dakota heard arguments in Constitution Party of South Dakota v Nelson, cv 10-3011.  The issue is a law that says that certain parties needs 250 signatures of registered party members to place candidates for Governor, U.S. Senator, and U.S. House-at-large on their own primary ballots.  The Constitution Party is ballot-qualified because it submitted 8,389 valid signatures, but it only has about 345 registered members.  It is virtually impossible to get 250 signatures on a petition when the pool of available signers consists of only 345 people, scattered across a state with a large area.

Due to a misunderstanding with the court, the Constitution Party’s attorney had not submitted a comprehensive brief on the law’s constitutionality, so the judge permitted a new round of briefs to be filed in the next few weeks.

Currently, Wisconsin has four qualified parties:  Democratic, Green, Libertarian, and Republican.  A party remains on the ballot if it polls 1% for any statewide race in a midterm year.  This year, no Green filed for a statewide office in the Green Party primary.  Also this year, no Libertarian filed for a statewide office in the Libertarian Party primary except for a candidate for Lieutenant Governor.  But because Governor and Lieutenant Governor are elected on a joint ticket in November, the nomination of the Libertarian candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Terry Virgil, is a futile act.  The state won’t print him on the November ballot without a gubernatorial running mate.

There are four Libertarians on the Libertarian primary ballot for state legislature, and one for U.S. House.  The Greens have one candidate on their own primary ballot for the legislature, Ben Manski.

Independent candidates qualified for the November ballot for U.S. Senate, and for Governor, and for five of the eight U.S. House seats, and for quite a few legislative seats.

For a party to get back on the ballot, or for a new party to qualify, 10,000 signatures are needed.  They can only be collected in the first half of an even-numbered year.  Or, if an unqualified party runs a statewide candidate who gets 1% of the vote, the unqualified party becomes qualified.  Wisconsin will have a U.S. Senate election in 2012, so either the Green Party or the Libertarian Party can regain their status after November 2012 if their U.S. Senate candidate, or their presidential candidate, polls 1% in 2012.

On July 14, a U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, Florida, upheld part of Florida public funding for gubernatorial candidates.  Specifically, the ruling upholds the part of the program that gives extra public funding to candidates who have privately-funded opponents with a great amount of private contrributions.  See this story.  The Florida case is Scott v Roberts, 4:10-cv-283.  A quick appeal will be made to the 11th circuit.

The Florida law this year gives extra public funding to Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is running in the Republican primary against multi-millionaire Rick Scott.  The law triggers extra public funding when the privately funded candidate spends as much as $24,900,000.

These provisions for extra public funding have recently now been upheld in the 9th circuit (in an Arizona case) and in this Florida case, but ruled unconstitutional in the recent Connecticut 2nd circuit decision.  The U.S. Supreme Court has indicated an interest in the Arizona case, and will probably decide the issue for the whole nation.