On December 16, the last brief was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in Doe v Reed, 09-559, the case over whether governments should release the names and addresses of people who sign petitions. The Court will consider whether the hear this case at its January 8, 2010 conference, although it won’t tell the public what it decided until January 11, 2010.

Here is the Washington state government’s brief, which argues that the names and addresses should be released because they aren’t really private anyway, since some sheets are circulated in public places, so that some people see some of the names in any event. Also it argues that it is necessary to let the names and addresses be public for the benefit of people who wish to contest the Secretary of State’s decision that the petition has enough valid names.

Here is the brief of Washington Families Standing Together, which intervened in the case on the side of the Secretary of State. It argues that the Court shouldn’t take the case because of procedural problems with taking it now.

Here is the response brief of the petition-signers who don’t want their names and addresses released to the public. It belittles the state’s argument that because there is inevitably some exposure of the names and addresses in limited situations, that therefore privacy is not a factor. It points out that when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1950’s that states may not force the NAACP to reveal its donor list and its members, in that situation there were already a relatively small number of people (mostly within the NAACP) who would see the list in any event.

Here is the first brief, filed by the proponents of privacy, back on November 7, 2009. This is the brief that opened this round of briefs, set forth what the case is about, and made the initial argument as to why the Court should hear the case. If the Court refuses to hear the case, then the Secretary of State will be free to release the 136,000 names and addresses of the people who signed the Referendum Petition to force a vote on the Washington state civil-unions law.

According to this story, Hawaii elections officials are thinking about holding an all-mail ballot election to fill the expected future vacancy in the U.S. House, district 1. Congressman Neil Abercrombie has said he will resign soon so that he can campaign full-time for Governor in 2010.

Hawaii’s elections office is trying to save money, and feels mail ballots would save money. Last time the state held a special U.S. House election, it cost $2,000,000.

On January 19, a state court in Tucson, Arizona will hear the case called City of Tucson v State of Arizona. The issue is whether the State Constitution protects a city’s right to decide for itself whether it wants partisan or non-partisan elections for its own offices. This year, the Arizona legislature passed a law requiring cities to use non-partisan elections, but Tucson (which uses partisan elections) says the law violates the Arizona Constitution.

On January 11, a U.S. District Court in Phoenix will hear the Green Party’s case against the state’s ban on out-of-state circulators for petitions to put a new party on the ballot. Another issue in that case is whether the February 2010 deadline for new party petitions can be enforced against the Green Party, since the legislature moved that deadline to an earlier date and made the change effective in 2010, after the Green Party’s petitioning effort had already started.