On March 25, proponents of a Utah referendum asked the State Supreme Court to invalidate the newly-passed ban on electronic signatures, at least as applied to their initiative. The case is Lord v Bell, 2011-02-59-SC. Here is the Complaint. Last year, the Utah Supreme Court had unanimously interpreted Utah law to permit electronic signatures on petitions. In response, this year the legislature banned electronic signatures, even though Utah does allow people to register to vote electronically.

The Utah Supreme Court has discretion on whether to hear this case or not. The lawsuit points out that it is illegal for voters to sign a petition twice. Some voters already signed it electronically. Now they can’t know whether they should sign a paper copy or not. Thanks to Paul Jacob for the link.

On March 31, the Washington House Rules Committee passed SB 5171. It moves the primary (for office other than President) from late August to early August. It also moves the deadline for candidates (for office other than President) to file, from May to April. The bill has already passed the Senate.

On March 31, U.S. District Court Judge William M. Conley upheld Wisconsin’s public funding law for candidates for State Supreme Court Justice. Here is the 39-page opinion. The case is Wisconsin Right to Life PAC v Brennan, 09-cv-764, western district. Wisconsin holds non-partisan elections for State Supreme Court Justice in April of odd years. A fierce contest is being held next week, between incumbent Justice David Prosser and challenger (and Assistant Attorney General) Joanne Kloppenburg.

The Wisconsin law provides for extra public funding for publicly-funded candidates, if outside groups spend a great deal of money expressly advocating his or her defeat. The lawsuit challenged this extra public funding, not the public funding program itself. The judge upheld the extra public funding, because he found that the need to insure that judicial elections are free from any appearance of bias or corruption is stronger than the need in elections for legislative or executive offices. Also, the extra public funding only applies when the independent expenditures expressly urge voters to vote for or against any particular candidate; the extra public funding doesn’t apply to independent expenditures that comment on candidates but don’t say “vote for” or “vote against”. Finally, the judge upheld the law because the amount of independent expenditures needed to trigger the extra public funding is so great, that the provision is unlikely to be used in any event. Thanks to Rick Hasen of ElectionLawBlog for the news.