On September 22, the Arizona Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of the city of Phoenix, in Jones v Paniagua. The issue is how many signatures are needed for a city referendum. The law says the number of signatures must be 10% of the vote cast in the last city election. But the uncertainty involved knowing which was the last city election, the 2007 first round (which had a high turnout and included the Mayor’s race), or the 2007 second round (which just had contests in some city council districts, plus a citywide ballot measure), which had a far lower turnout. The State Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of the second round, which meant far fewer signatures for referenda this year.

On September 22, the Massachusetts Senate passed the bill to empower Governors to fill vacant U.S. Senate seats, in the brief interval before the state holds a special election. The bill was originally HB 656, but is now HB 4246. It had already passed the House.

In 2008, the U.S. government had sued Euclid, Ohio, under the Voting Rights Act, concerning School Board elections. Euclid is 45% black, but almost no black had ever been elected to the School Board under the city’s at-large elections. The U.S. District Court, on July 13, 2009, had ordered that Euclid use Limited Voting for its School Board elections. But on September 10, the federal government appealed that order to the 6th circuit.

Limited Voting provides that each voter may only cast one vote, even though either two or three seats are open in that particular year. Apparently the Justice Department does not like this solution, and will probably be seeking single-member districts.