On December 4, a non-partisan group called The Know Campaign filed a lawsuit in Virginia state court, challenging a law that says certain voter registration data is private, and can only be distributed to candidates, political parties, and PACs. See this story. The case is The KnowCampaign v Rodrigues, city of Richmond circuit court, cl-09-005389-00.

The Know Campaign’s goal is to send letters to voters shortly before elections, motivating them to vote. The Know Campaign does this by telling voters which voters in their neighborhood voted in the previous election. The Know Campaign reasons that if people know that their neighbors will be learning (via such letters) who has voted, that people will be more motivated to vote, so as to avoid being embarrassed by such letters in the future. The Know Campaign carried out this type of activity in another state, and later research seemed to show the letter did cause higher voter turnout. The type of voter registration records at issue in this lawsuit is not only the list of registered voters, but the data that tells which voters voted.

In 1996, a federal court in Hawaii ruled in Donrey Media Group v Ikeda that if the government gives a list of the registered voters to parties and candidates, it must also give it on request to newspapers.

New Hampshire Representative Joel Winters (D-Manchester) has introduced a bill to make it easier for unqualified political parties to get on the ballot. Existing law requires a group that wishes to be a qualified party to submit a petition of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, which would be 20,394 valid signatures for 2010. This procedure has existed since 1996, but it is so difficult, it was only used once, in 2000, and back then it only required 9,827 valid signatures.

Winters’ bill would lower the petition to exactly 3,000 signatures. It happens that 3,000 is the existing petition requirement for statewide independent candidates. Even that petition is tough. For example, the Green Party has never placed a statewide candidate on the ballot in New Hampshire in its entire history, except in 2000.

Currently, New Hampshire is the only New England state with no ballot-qualified parties other than the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Three election law bills in the U.S. House of Representatives have gained co-sponsors since November 24. HR3957, to require states to permit same-day voter registration in federal elections, has gained four new co-sponsors and now has fourteen.

HR1826, for public funding for congressional elections, has gained two and now has 119 co-sponsors.

HR3025, to require states to use bipartisan redistricting commissions for U.S. House, has gained one and now has 24 co-sponsors.