On March 9, Warren Redlich and Mark Axinn filed a lawsuit in state court against the New York State Board of Elections, over the ballot format in November 2010 and many previous elections. The lawsuit points out that section 7-104(3)(c), which describes the general election ballot format, says each party is to have its own column or row. However, in 2010, the Libertarian Party was squeezed into the same column or row as another political party.

The lawsuit, called Redlich v New York State Board of Canvassers, also explains that 7-104(3)(c) has not been followed in the past because the mechanical voting machines didn’t have enough space to give each party its own column or row. But, the lawsuit then explains, New York no longer uses mechanical voting machines, and therefore the ballot format used in November 2010 was illegal and the illegality had no justification. New York used paper ballots in November 2010.

The lawsuit asks that in future elections, 7-104(3)(c) be followed. Also, it asks that the court recognize that the New York Libertarian Party probably would have received 50,000 votes if the ballot had not been so confusing. To buttress that conclusion, the lawsuit also points out that the official election returns failed to record how many void votes were cast in New York city. The official election returns show 3,001 void votes for Governor outside New York city, but zero void votes within New York city. It is very likely that many voters voted both for Redlich and another gubernatorial candidate who was on the ballot in the same column, and these votes should have been recorded as void. Without an accurate record of the number of void votes, it is difficult to analyze what effect the ballot format had. The party received 48,386 votes for Governor, according to the official returns. It needed 50,000 to become a qualified party. UPDATE: the case has a hearing on April 8.

On March 8, the New Mexico Senate Judiciary passed SB 403 unanimously. This is the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill. It makes three ballot access improvements: (1) it moves the independent candidate petition from early June to late June; (2) it tells the Secretary of State to make the petition forms for party qualification available at all times; (3) it reduces the number of signatures for a party to qualify in midterm years, from one-half of 1% of the last presidential vote, to one-half of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote. Also the bill straightens out the confusion in the existing law as to whether petition signers should list their residence address or their postal mailing address; and it directs the Secretary of State to notify parties when they lose their ballot qualification.

SB 403 had already passed the Senate Rules Committee. Now it goes to the Senate floor.