Ohio holds its primary this year on May 4. The race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate is between Ohio’s Lieutenant Governor, Lee Fisher, and Ohio’s Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner.

The State Column, which covers Ohio politics, has this April 12 story about Fisher’s attempt to score points against Brunner, over an election law issue. As the article says, Ohio is an open primary state, meaning that voters do not register into parties on the voter registration form. But Ohio has a law that says elections officials should make a record of which party’s primary a voter chooses. Then, at the next primary, if the voter has not filled out a form switching parties, the voter is expected to choose the same party’s primary ballot that he or she had chosen last time. But, this law has long been ignored in Ohio.

Recently Secretary of State Brunner said the law ought to be obeyed, and provided a form that voters who are switching parties should fill out at the polls on primary day. It asks the voter to express loyalty to the party whose primary ballot the voter desires. Brunner recently said she would like not to do this, but that she must enforce the law. However she also said she wants to repeal the law. Notwithstanding her statement, Fisher has just attacked her for enforcing the law and for producing the loyalty oath form.

On April 12, the North Dakota Secretary of State said that the Libertarian Party’s petition for party status is valid, and the party will be on the 2010 ballot. See this story. This is the first time a party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, has been on the ballot in North Dakota in a midterm year since 1998. The Reform Party got enough votes in North Dakota in 1996 so that it was on the ballot automatically in 1998.

The Libertarian Party is now ballot-qualified for statewide office, if not all office, in 30 states. Four years ago, at this point in the election cycle, it was ballot-qualified for statewide office in 28 states.

As noted in a blog post on April 7, some residents of Kinston, North Carolina, filed a federal lawsuit to overturn Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act. Their specific complaint is that the Justice Department won’t let the city change its city elections from partisan to non-partisan elections. This essay by Law Professor Daniel P. Tokaji says the Kinston plaintiffs will likely fail. They have never exercised their statutory right to ask a 3-judge district court in Washington, D.C. to reverse the Justice Department’s decision on the Kinston election system. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.