The NAACP of Georgia is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its case against Georgia’s law, requiring voters at the polls to show government photo-ID in order to vote. The case in the lower courts was called Common Cause/Georgia v Billups, but now it is called NAACP v Billups, no. 08-1231. Here is the brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s photo-ID law on April 28, 2008, but the Indiana case had been filed with no voter-plaintiffs who lacked the needed ID. The Court said the law was constitutional on its face but left the door open to an as-applied challenge after the law had been used. By contrast, the Georgia NAACP case has two voter-plaintiffs who lack any government photo-ID. The Court hasn’t set a conference date yet, but is expected to set one in a few days.

Recently, two South Carolina representative districts switched from having a Democratic member, to having a Republican member.

On May 15, Representative Dennis Moss of the 29th district announced he was switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. See this story. He had been re-elected in November 2008 as a Democrat, receiving 53.3% of the vote in a two-party race.

On April 30, South Carolina had held a special election in the adjacent 30th district to fill a vacancy. Although the Democrats had won the 30th district in November 2008 with 54.7% of the vote, at the special election, Republican nominee Steve Moss was elected with 53.6% of the vote in a two-party race. It is not known if the two new Republicans, both with a surname of Moss, are related.

Two bills affecting minor parties and independent candidates have made some headway in Maine. LD 1169 passed the Joint Committee on State and Local Government on May 6, and LD 1041 passed the same committee on May 13.

LD 1169 deletes the requirement that a voter casting a write-in vote must also write-in the name of that candidate’s town or city, and makes other improvements for write-in candidates. LD 1041 alters the law on how a qualified party remains on the ballot. Existing law requires it to have polled 5% for the office at the top of the ticket at either of the last two elections. The bill says a party remains on the ballot if it has 10,000 registered members who voted in the last general election. The only ballot-qualified party besides the Democratic and Republican Parties is the Green Party, which has slightly over 31,000 registered voters, three-fourths of whom voted in the 2008 general election.