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.

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.

On October 29, U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour, on his own motion, postponed the start of the trial in Washington State Republican Party v Washington State Grange from November 15, 2010, until January 18, 2011.  This is the case over the constitutionality of the top-two system.