On November 13, a South Dakota Circuit Court Judge ruled that petition signatures are valid if the signer is not on the list of active registered voters, but is on the list of inactive voters. Inactive voters are those who once registered to vote, but whose registration is considered questionable because the post office reported that the voter had moved and that voter has not re-registered. The judge, Kathleen Trandahl, also ruled that petition sheets are valid even if the notary public who notarized that sheet makes errors in his or her notarization statement, such as putting an incorrect date on when the notary’s seal expires. The case is Trucano v Nelson, 32-cv-09-306. See this story.

It is possible the state will appeal. UPDATE: on November 20, the state decided not to appeal. The case arose because the state had rejected a referendum petition. The 2009 session of the legislature had passed a bill to ban smoking in bars and casinos. Opponents of that new law had then submitted a petition to call for a public vote, which will be held in November 2010.

Briefs are being filed in the Indiana Supreme Court in the case League of Women Voters v Rokita, over whether the Indiana law requiring voters to show government photo-ID at the polls violates the Indiana Constitution. On September 17, the Indiana State Court of Appeals had invalidated the law, so now the Indiana Supreme Court will have the last word.

Amicus curiae briefs against the law have been filed by the ACLU, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the national League of Women Voters, the American Association of Retired Persons, and the National Senior Citizens Law Center. Also, six political science professors have filed a brief against the law, and another brief was filed by two history professors and a law professor. The role of the history professors is to shed light on the intent of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention that wrote Indiana’s Constitution.

No amicus brief was filed in support of the law. All these briefs may be read at the Moritz Law web page, at this link.

This news is not directly related to election law, but it is being posted because it concerns Ron Paul, who has been the leading champion in Congress for ballot access reform for the last ten years. On November 19, the contents of Ron Paul’s HR 1207 were amended into the Financial Regulatory Reform bill of the House Committee on Financial Services, HR 3996. The Paul-Grayson amendment provides that the GAO should audit the Federal Reserve. Paul’s co-author for this bill, Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Florida), is vice-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Paul has been working for an audit of the Federal Reserve for approximately twenty years. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news. See this story.

Also, see this November 20 commentary from the Financial Times.