On June 20, a New Hampshire state Superior Court Judge said he will hold a bench trial in Blevens v Gardner, the lawsuit filed last year over New Hampshire ballot design. In 2006 the New Hampshire Supreme Court had ruled unanimously in Akins v Secretary of State, 904 A.2d 702, that the state constitution requires that all candidates and all parties have an equal chance for the best position on the general election ballot. The legislature implemented this decision by saying that all party columns should be rotated, so that each column would appear in the best position in part of the state. In 2010, this meant that the Republican column had the best spot in one-third of the state, the Democratic column had the best spot in one-third of the state, and the “Other candidates” column had the best spot in one-third of the state.

However, within the “other candidates” column, Ken Blevens, the 2010 Libertarian nominee for U.S. Senate, always appeared below an independent candidate within the same column. No rotation of names was made within that column. Another issue is whether the Libertarian Party should have had its own party column. New Hampshire is the only state in which it is state policy that unqualified parties can never have their own party column. Briefs will be in by October, and the trial will be in January 2012.

On June 23, the Ohio Senate passed HB 194, the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill. As mentioned earlier, it moves the primary in presidential years from March to May, and it moves the petition deadline for new party petitions from 120 days before the primary to 90 days before the primary. Although this is obviously better than having a deadline of November of the year before the election, it still gives Ohio an unconstitutionally early petition deadline of early February.

The bill is not entirely through the legislature. The Senate amended some unrelated aspects, and so it must go back to the House for concurrence. That will happen on June 27 at the earliest.

Assuming the bill is signed into law in the next two weeks, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted will probably rule that the new law is valid, and that therefore the four minor parties that were on the ballot in 2008 and 2010 (Constitution, Green, Libertarian, and Socialist) are no longer ballot-qualified. This is not certain, however. A new lawsuit is extremely likely; the new lawsuit will argue that the new law is just as unconstitutional as the old law.

On June 20, the Louisiana Senate passed HB 533 by 26-9. This is the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill. Among other things, it lets independent candidates for all office have “independent” on the ballot next to their names. Previously, only independent presidential candidates could have that label. The bill also removes the names of presidential elector candidates from the ballot.