The Prison Policy Institute has published this report, describing in detail how each state government handles the problem of residency for prisoners. The report also explains how the Census Bureau is improving its data collection, so as to be helpful to states that want to treat prisoners as residents of their homes before they were incarcerated, as opposed to treating them as residents of the prison.

This subject has political implications, because of the 1960’s decisions of the Supreme Court that U.S. House districts, and legislative districts, and local government districts, must be approximately equal in population. If a rural county has 10,000 civilian residents, and also hosts several large state prisons that hold 25,000 prisoners, the state must decide whether to treat that county as having either 35,000 residents, or 10,000 residents, for purposes of redistricting. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for the link.

This year, the Illinois Libertarian Party will attempt to complete the very difficult requirement for U.S. House in the 14th district. Libertarian nominee Doug Marks needs 16,743 valid signatures to be assured a place on the ballot. The 14th district stretches across northern Illinois from east to west, and once was represented by former Republican speaker Dennis Hastert.

In 2008, after Hastert retired, the district chose a Democrat, Bill Foster. The vote in 2008 was 185,404 for the Democrat, and 135,653 for the Republican nominee, Jim Oberweis. The Green nominee in 2008, Robert Hill, was removed from the ballot after Democrats challenged the paperwork by which the Greens nominated him. This district is still considered marginal, and it is very likely that Marks’ petition will be challenged.

If the Libertarian Party manages to collect 16,743 valid signatures for Marks, that will set a new petitioning record nationwide for candidate for U.S. House. The most difficult petition requirement that has ever been overcome for that office was 12,919 signatures, collected by independent Frazier Reams in Ohio in 1954.

Many U.S. House nominees of unqualified political parties have managed to be on the ballot in Illinois, but only because Illinois permits anyone to get on the general election ballot with any number of signatures (no matter how tiny) if no one brings a petition challenge against them. For instance, in 1996, Libertarians were on the ballot for ten of the twenty Illinois U.S. House districts, but not because they completed the difficult 5% petitions. Instead, Libertarians in 1996 filed candidates in all the U.S. House districts, and in half of them, no one bothered to challenge the Libertarians, who typically submitted only a dozen or so signatures.

On rare occasions, someone files a challenge in Illinois and then withdraws the challenge. Bill Scheurer, U.S. House nominee of the Moderate Party in Illinois’ 8th district in 2006, appeared on the ballot because a challenge to his petition was withdrawn. Democrats had challenged him, but withdrew the challenge after Scheurer filed his own lawsuit alleging that Democrats had tricked him into hiring a paid petitioning company that secretly plotted to sabotage his petition.

On March 22, the Nevada U.S. Senate candidate for the Independent American Party (affiliate of the Constitution Party) filed a lawsuit in state court, to keep Scott Ashjian off the November ballot. The lawsuit says that the law requires Ashjian to have been registered in the Tea Party no later than March 1, but that he didn’t fill out a new affidavit of registration until March 2. See this story. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the news. The Independent American Party U.S. Senate candidate is Tim Fasano.

Back in 1994, a somewhat similar Nevada law was used by the Secretary of State to keep certain Independent American Party nominees off the general election ballot. Secretary of State Cheryl Lau disqualified seven IAP candidates, but the State Supreme Court put them back on the ballot, and ruled that Nevada had no law telling minor party nominees that they must have been registered into their party by any particular date. That case was Independent American Party v Lau, 880 P.2d 1391.

Even earlier, in 1975, the Independent American Party also won on this issue in the Nevada Supreme Court. That case was Long v Swackhamer, 538 P.2d 587. The Court ruled that it would be unconstitutional to require a new party’s members to have been registered into the party at some point in the past. Also, in 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court said in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that it would violate the First Amendment for any state to tell a party that it can’t nominate a non-member.