The Arkansas Green Party has put the issue of ballot access reform into a mainstream Arkansas media outlet.  See this story, in which the reporter explains the party’s complaint against the vote test for a party to remain on.  As the article explains, the party polled 32% of the vote in one two-party statewide race, but the state still says the party doesn’t deserve to be on the ballot automatically in 2012 because it didn’t get 3% for Governor.

Although it is always plausible to get ballot access reform bills introduced and passed without any publicity, publicity like this only helps.

The Colorado Secretary of State will not appeal last week’s decision on the validity of write-in votes, when the voter forgets or doesn’t know to fill in the bubble next to the name that voter has just written in.  See this story.  The “undervotes” in the State House race in district 61 will now get a recount using human beings.  They may or may not find enough ballots in which the voter wrote in “Kathleen Curry” but didn’t fill in the bubble, to give the lead to Curry, the write-in independent candidate who is running for re-election.

On November 3, two members of the U.S. House of Representatives filed a federal lawsuit to overturn the Florida redistricting measures that passed last week.  See this story.  The two members are Democrat Corrine Brown and Republican Mario Diaz-Balart.

The measures do not remove the power to draw district boundaries from the legislature, but they require the legislature to draw plans that do not favor any particular incumbent, and also plans that do not favor any particular political party.  The two plaintiffs argue that this violates the Voting Rights Act.  The case is Brown v State of Florida, southern district, 1:10-cv-23968.  Thanks to Justin Levitt and Rick Hasen for the case name and case number.