Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed filed a brief with the 9th circuit on September 28, in the lawsuit John Doe #1 v Reed, 09-35818. This is the case over whether the Constitution requires that signatures on petitions be considered private, not public information. A U.S. District Court judge had ruled on September 10 in favor of secrecy, and enjoined the Secretary of State from releasing the names and addresses of signers of the petition to require a public vote on the civil unions law passed earlier this year by the legislature. Supporters of the law had wanted to post the names and addresses of the petition signers on the internet.

South Bend, Indiana’s daily newspaper, the South Bend Tribune, has this editorial, which ran September 28. It comments on the September 17 ruling of the State Court of Appeals, a ruling that invalidated the state’s photo voter-ID requirement for voters at the polls.

This is at least the third large newspaper editorial about the decision. All have been mildly supportive of the court, and all have condemned the reaction of Governor Mitch Daniels to the ruling. Daniels had said the decision was “preposterous”, but later he admitted he hadn’t read the decision when he said that.

The Boston Herald has this story about Joseph L. Kennedy, independent candidate for U.S. Senate in the January 2010 special election. The story points out that he is a dues-paying member of the national Libertarian Party, but that he is petitioning as an independent candidate. This is somewhat odd, because the Massachusetts Libertarian Party is ballot-qualified. However, Massachusetts is one of two states in which it is easier to get on the ballot as an independent, than to get on the primary ballot of a small qualified party (the other such state is Maine, although this characteristic also applies to some offices in New York).