Matt Damon Makes You Tube, Explaining New York Ballot Problem for Voters who Want to Support Working Families Party

Posted on by November 1, 2010
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Movie star Matt Damon has made this you tube, intended for voters who want to support the New York Working Families Party on November 2.  As has been previously noted, this year New York isn’t using mechanical voting machines; voters are voting on paper ballots.  Therefore, the Working Families Party, the Independence Party, and the Conservative Party, are all alarmed that many voters are likely to vote twice for one office, for the same candidate.  When that happens, the vote-counting machines will count those votes as valid for the party that appears first.  So anyone who votes for Andrew Cuomo, for example, as both a Democrat, and a Working Families Party nominee, will have that voted count only for the Democratic Party.

Thanks to Kimberly Wilder for the link.

U.S. Government Gets Second Extension of Time to File Brief in Case Over Size of U.S. House

Posted on by November 1, 2010
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The federal government has now obtained a second extension of time in which to respond to the people who filed the lawsuit Clemons v U.S. Department of Commerce, 10-291.  The case is pending in the U.S. Supreme Court and concerns the size of the U.S. House of Representatives.  The government brief is now due November 17.  It had originally been due on September 29, and then the government had won an extension to file by October 29.

The lawsuit argues that the 14th amendment requires “one person, one vote” for representation in the U.S. House.  But because U.S. House districts never include part of one state and part of another state, the voters of some states have almost twice as much representation in the U.S. House as other states.  For example, Montana and Wyoming each have one representative, but Montana has almost twice as many people as Wyoming.  Therefore, the case argues that the only way to cure the problem is to increase the size of the U.S. House.

Goldwater Institute Will Sue Maricopa County, Arizona, Over Tea Party Shirts at Polls

Posted on by November 1, 2010
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Even though the Goldwater Institute already won injunctive relief against Coconino County, in federal court, over whether voters may wear shirts to the polls that mention the Tea Party, Maricopa County says it is not subject to that ruling.  Therefore, the Institute is about to sue Maricopa County over the same issue today.  See this story.

Mississippi State Supreme Court Approves Write-in Election to Replace Deceased Judge

Posted on by November 1, 2010
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On October 27, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld an order of a lower state court, and ruled that voters should choose a new judge in the 13th Judicial Circuit on November 2, 2010, using write-in votes.  No names will be printed on the ballot for that office.  Here is the opinion, which is called Rayner v Barbour, 2010-EC-1682.

Generally, when Mississippi voters use the write-in to elect someone, there is someone’s name on the ballot.  The Circuit Clerks of the various counties in the 13th Circuit had filed the lawsuit against the Secretary of State, alleging that it is not proper to use write-in votes to choose a new judge, in the circumstances that no one’s name is printed on the ballot.  The only candidate who had qualified to have his name on the ballot had died before the ballots were printed, so his name does not appear.  But there was no time for anyone else to qualify to be listed.  The clerks filed the lawsuit because they worry that the voters will not make an informed choice.  But the majority decision says, “The Court observes that all Mississippi elections, except for run-off elections, permit voters to vote by write-in vote.”

The Associated Press initially sent out a story about this lawsuit, saying it was in federal court, but that was an error.