On January 10, U.S. District Court Judge Robert M. Dow, Jr., a Bush Jr. appointee, upheld the Illinois election law that requires candidates for citywide office in Chicago to obtain 12,500 signatures. The case is Stone v Board of Election Commissioners, 10-cv-7727. The 15-page opinion can be read here. The link goes to the brief that the plaintiffs filed in the 7th circuit, asking for reversal; the decision is at the end of the brief, in the Appendix.

The decision was not surprising. 12,500 signatures is 2.74% of the number of people who voted in the last Chicago citywide election, in February 2007. It is also less than 1% of the number of registered voters in Chicago. Six candidates for Mayor qualified for the 2011 election, and the petitions of three other Mayoral candidates may or may not succeed, depending on the outcome of challenges that are still going on.

On January 3, John Lampros was chosen Chairman of the White Pine County, Nevada County Commission. Lampros had been elected a member of that Commission in a partisan election on November 2, 2010. He was the nominee of the Independent American Party, which is the Constitution Party affiliate in Nevada. Lampros is the highest-ranking elected official from the Constitution Party anywhere in the nation, since the party had a state legislator, Rick Jore, in Montana. See this story. Thanks to Cody Quirk for the link.

White Pine County is in eastern central Nevada, bordering Utah. The county seat and largest town in the county is Ely.

On January 11, U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, ruled that Washington state’s top-two system does not violate the associational rights of political parties. The decision is Washington State Republican Party et al v Washington State Grange, 2:05-cv-927. See here for the 24-page opinion. The judge canceled the trial that had been set for January 18.

The opinion also holds that the state’s method of electing party officers in the top-two primary is unconstitutional. Now, the legislature will need to change the procedure for those elections. It is possible the legislature will simply change the law to abolish public elections for party officers.

Last year, Judge Coughenour had ruled that Washington state’s top-two system does not violate the U.S. Supreme Court’s ballot access precedents. He made that ruling before much evidence had been introduced on that point. The plaintiffs will now be able to appeal that ruling, as well as the recent ruling, to the 9th circuit, and they will do so.

Judge Coughenour acknowledged that the evidence on freedom of association does show that many Washington state voters are confused about whether a party label on the ballot indicates that the party approves of the candidate. But he said the standard for judgment must be whether “reasonable, well-informed” voters are confused, and that the evidence about “unreasonable, uninformed voters” is irrelevant.