On March 4, the Green Party of Connecticut filed this 16-page rebuttal brief in the U.S. Supreme Court, in Green Party of Connecticut v Lenge, 10-795. The next step is for the Court to decide whether to hear this case. It is possible the court’s conference of March 25 will consider whether to hear the case.
On February 28, local branches of the NAACP filed lawsuits against twelve Mississippi counties in federal court, seeking a court order to require the counties to move the candidate filing deadline from March 1 to June 1, for this year only, for candidates for county office only. The filing deadline this year for candidates for the state legislature is already June 1, although candidates for statewide office faced a filing deadline of March 1.
The census data from the 2010 census was delivered to Mississippi last month, and the counties will be redrawing their county supervisor district boundaries. The lawsuits argue that it isn’t feasible for candidates to file, before the district boundaries are known. However, it appears at least one of the counties has already redrawn its districts, but is waiting for the U.S. Justice Department to approve those new boundaries. One of the cases, in the northern district, is Winston County NAACP v Winston County Board of Supervisors, 1:11-cv-059. Thanks to Steve Rankin for this news.
If it is feasible for the filing deadlines in 2011 for some office to be on June 1, one wonders why the state legislature didn’t provide that all candidates have a June 1 deadline this year. The primary is in August.
On March 4, a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., heard one hour and forty minutes of oral argument in Libertarian Party v District of Columbia Board of Elections, 09-cv-1676. The case had been filed in 2009, after it became apparent that the District of Columbia Board of Elections would not tally the number of write-in votes cast for Bob Barr in the November 2008 election. Barr was a declared write-in presidential candidate, and had filed a slate of candidates for presidential elector, in accordance with the Board’s own procedures for write-in presidential candidates. Barr was the only declared write-in presidential candidate in the District in 2008.
Attorneys for the Board suggested that it would be very difficult to count the write-ins. But, they also said that if Barr and the Libertarian Party wanted to know how many write-ins Barr got, the party could have filed a Freedom of Information Act request, or else could have requested and paid for a recount. The latter ideas seems to counter their first argument. During the course of the argument, the famous U.S. Supreme Court opinion Bush v Gore was mentioned. Bush v Gore said that the Constitution requires elections officials to treat all voters equally.
David Bellow has this blog post on TexasGOPVote. He recounts instances at which Democratic county elected officials have switched to being Republicans, not out of sincerity, but because it is easier to win elections in many Texas counties as a Republican.
The Reform Party of Mississippi is split into two factions, each with its own set of state officers. In Mississippi, candidates for public partisan office file with their parties, not with election officials. Seven candidates associated with one faction filed in the party’s primary for statewide office with their faction’s officers. Four candidates associated with the other faction filed for statewide office with their faction’s officers.
One might think a rational way of settling the dispute would be to have a contested primary, but that will not happen. Instead, the Secretary of State will investigate which set of state officers is the legitimate set, and then the candidates who filed with those officers will be on the ballot, and the others won’t. Mississippi elects eight statewide state officers in 2011, including Governor.
