On January 20, a group that wished to qualify a local ballot initiative in Fort Myers, Florida, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its case, Citizens for Police Accountability Political Committee v Browning, 09-861. The issue is Florida’s discriminatory law concerning polling places on election day. Florida law says exit pollsters may talk to voters on their way out of the polling place location, within 25 feet of the entrance to the polling place. But petitions cannot talk to votes on their way out of the polling place location, any closer than 100 feet. UPDATE: here is the cert petition filed by Citizens for Police Accountability.

Petitioning at the polls is very successful, because virtually everyone leaving the polling place is a registered voter. The U.S. District Court, on August 22, 2008, had granted an injunction against the Florida law for petitioners. But the U.S. Court of Appeals had reversed that on June 25, 2009. The 11th circuit said it would bother voters to be approached by circulators, but didn’t really explain why exit pollsters are treated better than petitioners. Neither exit pollsters nor petitioners wish to talk to voters on their way in to vote. They only wish to approach people leaving. Exit pollsters typically ask voters to fill out a questionaire that contains between 20 and 30 questions. That takes longer, and is more intrusive, than a petition circulator asking a voter to sign his or her name and address to a petition. Thanks to Paul Jacob for this news.

The Burlington, Vermont Free Press has this news report about a legislative committee hearing on a bill to move the Vermont non-presidential primary from September to August. There are apparently alternatives to moving the primary to an earlier date, despite a new federal law that says overseas absentee ballots must be mailed no later than 45 days before an election.

The election of Republican Scott P. Brown to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts on January 19 has been big news all week. Brown, and his Democratic opponent Martha Coakley, were each nominated by their parties in primaries on December 8, 2009.

The Democratic primary results in December 2009 were: Martha Coakley 311,548; Michael Capuano 185,157; Alan Khazei 89,294; Stephen Pagliuca 80,217; write-ins 1,800.

The Republican primary results were: Scott P. Brown 146,057; Jack E. Robinson 17,344.

Massachusetts independent voters may vote in any party’s primary. Over half the Massachusetts voters are registered independents. All four of the Democrats running in the primary had significant support. Martha Coakley is the state Attorney General and had the highest name recognition of the four candidates. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Congressman Michael Capuano and donated $10,000 to his campaign. The Boston Globe endorsed philanthropist Alan Khazei. The fourth Democrat, Stephen Pagliuca, was a well-funded financier and co-owner of the Boston Celtics.

Consequently, it isn’t surprising that two of the Democrats each received higher vote totals than the man who won the Republican primary, State Senator Scott P. Brown. This suggests, but does not prove, that if Massachusetts had been using a “top-two open primary” system, the two candidates in the final round would have been Coakley and Capuano, and Scott Brown (the actual winner in the real world) would have washed out in the first round.

It is true that registered Democrats in Massachusetts had no choice but to vote in the Democratic primary, if they voted in the primary. But registered Democrats were free to cast a write-in vote for Scott Brown, and undoubtably some of them did. However, only 1,800 write-in votes were cast in the Democratic primary, so it isn’t likely that many Democrats did vote for Brown. As noted above, registered independents were free to vote in either the Democratic primary, or the Republican primary, so any independent would have been free to choose a Republican primary ballot and vote for Brown. Yet, he was not one of the top two vote-getters in the primary.