Two lawsuits involving minor parties have oral arguments during the first week in December. One is Libertarian Party v Dardenne, 09-30307, being heard in the 5th circuit on December 3. This is the case on whether the Louisiana Secretary of State was correct last year when he refused to permit the ballot-qualified Libertarian Party to file its presidential elector paperwork on September 12. The panel will be Judges James Dennis, Catharine Haynes, and Carl Stewart. Judge Dennis was one of the judges who upheld the Texas ballot access law for independent presidential candidates in 2004. The other two judges have never had a ballot access case.

On December 4, a U.S. District Court in Long Island, New York, will hear oral arguments in MacKay v Crews, 2:09-cv-2218. This is another lawsuit to identify the actual national party officers of the Reform Party. The judge has promised a speedy decision. The first-named Defendant, Kay Crews, is not a member of the Reform Party. She was the court-appointed parliamentarian appointed by a Texas court to supervise the party’s national convention in Texas last year.

Also during the first week in December, Washington state will be filing its brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in John Doe v Sam Reed, the case over whether names and addresses of people who sign petitions should be made public. It will be interesting to see how the Washington Secretary of State defends his position. In the 9th circuit he argued that the petitions aren’t truly private in any event, because as petition sheets circulate, someone who is signing near the bottom of the sheet can see the names and addresses of people who signed the same sheet earlier. This is not a very convincing argument. Some of the referendum petition sheets at issue in this particular case were only circulated in churches, not in open public spaces, so only fellow church members would have seen the same sheets. Also, census data and income tax forms are considered private, but it is inevitable that some government employees see the information.

Although it had already been reported that the Libertarian Party won ten partisan elections in Pennsylvania on November 3, 2009, it had not been previously reported that two of the wins were in a contest in which the Libertarians had ballot-listed major party opponents.

Many minor party victories in partisan races in Pennsylvania occur because the minor party nominees are the only candidates on the ballot. Many small townships in Pennsylvania have trouble finding individuals willing to serve.

However, in the recent election for Borough Council in Houston, Pennsylvania, the two Libertarians who were elected had Democratic Party opponents on the November 3, 2009 ballot. Houston is in Washington County, in the southwest part of the state. It has a population of 1,314. The voters were choosing three council members. The results were: Libertarian Paula Meddings 119 votes, Libertarian Chad Roberts 118 votes, Democrat James Stubenbordt 97 votes, Democrat David Schmalz 91 votes, Libertarian Seth Fosmire 57 votes. So, two Libertarians and one Democrat were elected.

Wyoming has very difficult ballot access for both new parties and independent candidates. The only party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, that has appeared on the Wyoming ballot since 2001 has been the Libertarian Party. The Constitution Party is working on an all-volunteer petition drive to obtain the 4,988 valid signatures needed for party status in 2010, and now has 2,400 signatures.

Although 4,988 signatures may not sound difficult, Wyoming is the nation’s least populous state. The law requires 2% of the last U.S. House vote. If the Constitution Party succeeds in 2010, this will be the first new party petition to succeed in Wyoming for a mid-term year election since the Libertarians last did it in 1994 (Libertarians have not needed to petition since 1994, because the party always meets the vote test to remain on the ballot). Neither the Green Party nor the Constitution Party has ever been on the Wyoming ballot. Wyoming was one of seven states in which Ralph Nader failed to get on the ballot in 2000.