On October 13, several individuals and groups that circulate initiative petitions, or which support the initiative process, filed a federal lawsuit against one Nevada election law. That law requires all petitions (for initiatives, new parties, and independent candidates) to carry a statement by the circulator that “each individual who signed was at the time of signing a registered voter in the county of his or her residence.”

The plaintiffs, who include Citizens in Charge and We the People, say circulators cannot know whether any particular signer is registered. Circulators can and do ask, but the voter’s response may or may not be accurate. Many voters do not actually know if they are registered, or whether their registration is at a current address or a past address. The case is Angle v Miller, 2:09-cv-1969.

Pierce County, Washington, used Ranked Choice Voting for the first time for certain partisan county offices in 2008. Now there is a ballot measure (placed on the ballot by the County Commission) that asks the voters if they wish to repeal that system. Tacoma’s daily newspaper, the News Tribune, has this article about the campaign.

On October 13, Eugene Platt declared his candidacy for the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2010 from the 115th district. He is the Green Party’s only elected official in that state; he currently serves on the James Island Public Service District Commission, having been re-elected to that position last year. Here is his web page, although it appears not to have his recent declaration posted yet.

Platt had tried to run for the legislature in 2008. After the Green Party had nominated him at its convention in April 2008, he had also run in the Democratic primary. Because he lost the Democratic primary, his nomination by the Green Party was voided by the State Election Commission. He and the Green Party are currently in the 4th circuit, arguing that the state law that permits such retroactive disqualification is unconstitutional. South Carolina does permit two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate, and is the only fusion state that says one nomination can be jeopardized if the candidate tries and fails to win a second party’s nomination.