The U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, has set a briefing schedule in Barr v Galvin, 09-2426. The brief of Massachusetts state officials is due December 21, 2009. The Libertarian Party’s brief is due January 20, 2010. The issue is whether the Constitution requires Massachusetts to permit unqualified parties to use a stand-in presidential candidate on its ballot access petitions. The lower court had ruled in favor of the Libertarian Party. This is the first time any case on stand-ins on petitions has reached any U.S. Court of Appeals. In the past, states that lost on this issue in federal court (two cases in Florida and one in Virginia) didn’t appeal.

Constitutional election law cases involving minor parties or independent candidates are now pending in six of the twelve U.S. Courts of Appeals. Besides the Massachusetts case pending in the First Circuit mentioned above, they are:

2nd Circuit: the Connecticut case over public funding laws that make it easier for Democratic and Republican candidates to receive funding.

4th Circuit: the South Carolina case that prevents a party from having its nominee on the November ballot if, after the party nominated someone, that person tried and failed to get the nomination of a second party.

5th Circuit: cases in Louisiana and Mississippi over the administration of deadlines for getting presidential candidates on the ballot, and whether only state legislatures can determine such deadlines.

9th Circuit: the Hawaii case over whether a state can require more than six times as many signatures for a single independent candidate as for an entire new party.

11th Circuit: cases in Alabama and Georgia over the number of signatures needed for independent candidates for the U.S. House.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed four bills last month that would have inhibited the initiative process in some way. A previous blog post of October 12 said that he had vetoed SB 34, to make it illegal to pay initiative circulators on a per-signature basis. However, that blog post failed to mention three other vetoed bills: AB 6 would have required organizations that hire circulators to register with the Secretary of State and to pay an unspecified fee. AB 436 would have raised the filing fee for anyone to file a proposed initiative with the Attorney General, from $200, to $2,000. And AB 1068 would have it made it illegal for companies that hire paid circulators to write into the contract a provision saying no circulator would be paid unless the initiative qualified for the ballot.

The unofficial vote totals for each candidate for New Jersey Governor from last week’s election are:

Republican (Chris Christie) 1,004,219
Democratic (Jon Corzine) 962,130
independent (Chris Daggett) 120,821
Libertarian (Ken Kaplan) 4,246
Socialist (Greg Pason) 1,908

Other independents: Gary Steele 2,798; Jason Cullen 2,593; Kostas Petris 2,397; David Meiswinkle 2,242; Gary Stein 1,513; Joshua Leinsdorf 919; Alvin Lindsay 695.

Burlington County reported 108 write-ins for Governor. Generally, New Jersey counties don’t bother to mention how many write-in votes were received, much less reveal who received those write-ins. The Burlington County report is unusual. The only known write-in candidate who campaigned was Angela Lariscy, the Socialist Workers Party candidate.

Monmouth County hasn’t reported any tentative totals yet, so when its vote is available, all these totals will be larger.