On June 17, the federal government said that it will not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in SpeechNow.org v Federal Election Commission, 599 F.3d 686.

The U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, had ruled in that case that the government may not limit how much money is contributed to nonprofit associations that are spending the money on independent expenditures about candidates for federal office. See this Scotusblog article. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

California law says absentee ballots must arrive in the hands of election officials by closing hour on election day, or they can’t be counted. This story shows that at least 12,563 Riverside County absentee ballots won’t be counted, because they were not put into the hands of election officials until the day after the election.

The post office and elections officials generally depend on election officials visiting post offices and picking up ballots on election day. But the 12,563 ballots in the Moreno Valley postal processing center were not picked up on election day. Election officials say they expected the ballots to be in the Riverside post office, and thus didn’t visit the Moreno Valley post office on election day.

Before 1961, California absentee ballots were valid if they had been postmarked by election day. But in the 1960 presidential election, votes counted by the day after the election showed John F. Kennedy carrying California in the presidential election. It took several weeks for the 1960 absentee ballots to be counted, and when they had been counted, it turned out Richard Nixon had carried California. Democrats in the state legislature were so upset by this unexpected reversal that they changed the law, to provide that only absentee ballots in the hands of election officials by election day would be valid.

On June 16, the Louisiana legislature passed HB 292. It sets up a single ballot for congressional candidates, which all voters use. This ballot is used in November. If anyone gets 50% or more of the vote, that person is elected. Otherwise, there is a run-off in December.

This system is somewhat different from the California and Washington state top-two laws. Louisiana does not prevent any candidate for Congress from campaigning during the summer and fall campaign season.

The Louisiana bill does not take effect until 2011.