On May 17, the U.S. Supreme Court said it won’t hear the Mississippi ballot access case, Moore v Hosemann, 09-982. Two other ballot access cert petitions are still pending, one from Alabama, and one from Louisiana.

The original issue in the Mississippi case was whether Brian Moore, Socialist Party presidential candidate, should have been on the November 2008 ballot. His presidential elector paperwork had been submitted ten minutes past 5 p.m. The chances of this case being heard in the U.S. Supreme Court were probably diminished when the Mississippi legislature this year passed a bill, saying such paperwork is due at 5 p.m. (previously, the law set a date for the deadline, but not a time).

The U.S. Supreme Court has said that ballot access lawsuits are not moot just because the election is over. But this case had a different type of mootness problem. This year, after Moore had filed his brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, the legislature had fixed the law that had been complained about. The Court had never before taken any election law case in which the legislature had already fixed the problem complained about while the case was pending.

The new British government has promised to hold a referendum on whether Great Britain should use the “alternative vote” method for House of Commons elections. That is another term for one version of Instant Runoff Voting. This poll shows that the idea is leading 59% to 32%, with the other 9% undecided. Thanks to Robb Richie for the link.

The Myrtle Beach, South Carolina newspaper, The Sun News, has this story in its May 16 edition about the North Carolina First Party. The petition deadline is May 17, and the party needs 85,379 valid signatures. Even though the story says the party has 120 petitioners, the story also says the party only has 86,000 signatures, which will not be enough unless there is a super-human push this weekend.

However, under a State Board of Elections ruling issued a few years ago for the Libertarian Party, the signatures can be supplemented and turned in later this year, or even next year, and they will count for 2012. Also, it is very likely the party could win a lawsuit against the May 17 petition deadline. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Mandel v Bradley, in 1977, that early petition deadlines are unconstitutional when virtually no group or candidate ever meets the requirement. No statewide independent except Ross Perot, and no party except the Libertarian and Reform Parties, has ever met the 2% North Carolina statewide petition requirement, and that requirement has existed since 1983. There is no important reason for the deadline to be in May, because North Carolina doesn’t give a primary to new parties anyway. The independent candidate petition deadline is June 10 and there is no practical reason why the two deadlines should differ.