On April 8, the Libertarian Party asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal in Libertarian Party v Dardenne. The issue is whether Bob Barr should have been on the November 2008 ballot in Louisiana. The party submitted its presidential elector paperwork on time, from the viewpoint of the Governor’s Emergency Proclamation, but late, from the viewpoint of the Secretary of State’s rules. Here is the brief, which not only presents the ballot access issue, but the separate issue of whether the case should be considered moot or not, and a third issue of whether the state should have accepted service without the need for the party to pay a process server.

The U.S. Supreme Court now has four ballot access cases, and should decide before June whether to hear any of them. They are the Florida case on petitioning at the polls, and the cases for presidential ballot access in 2008 from Mississippi and Louisiana, and the Alabama case over the number of signatures for an independent for Congress.

On April 6, the California Senate Elections Committee passed SB 1140 by a vote of 3-2. It permits unregistered voters to register on election day. However, for 2012, such voters could only do this at a county government office, not at a neighborhood polling place. The bill now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill’s author is Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco).

California is the only state that prints the occupation of each candidate on the ballot next to the name of the candidate. This amusing Ventura County Star column shows that misleading occupational labels sometimes end up on ballots.