On September 15, Duke University’s Political Union heard from Political Science Professor Michael Munger, speakling about the Libertarian Party, minor parties in general, and the North Carolina ballot access laws. See this story. Munger actually understated his case. North Carolina’s petition for new parties, and for statewide independent candidate petitions, for 2010 and 2012 is 85,379 valid signatures, not 70,000. North Carolina is one of only four states in which Ralph Nader never has appeared on the ballot (the others are Oklahoma, Indiana and Georgia). A decision about the constitutionality of North Carolina’s law is expected from the State Court of Appeals, any day now.

Two Indiana University School of Law Professors, Michael J. Pitts and Matthew D. Newmann, have tentatively published a research paper that finds that in November 2008, 1,039 Indiana voters showed up at the polls but were not permitted to cast a normal ballot because they lacked government photo-ID. These 1,039 voters did cast a provisional ballot, but only 137 of those provisional ballots were counted. The other 902 provisional ballots were never counted because the voter never returned to the county seat during the next few days after the election with adequate ID.

The 26-page paper can be read most easily by using the link from the September 16 posting in ElectionLawBlog.com. The paper is on the Social Science Research Network (http://papers.ssrn.com) but one must register to read papers there, so it is less work to use the ElectionLawBlog link.

The paper is important, because when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s government-photo ID law on April 28, 2008, the Court only upheld it on its face. No plaintiffs in the case lacked adequate ID. The Court left open the possibility of an “as-applied” challenge if such plaintiffs ever surfaced. The paper is easy to read and understand and is enjoyable to read. The authors were required to get data from each of Indiana’s 92 counties, because the state does not make such data available. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for the link.

New York city held a primary on September 15. Bill de Blasio placed first in the Democratic primary for Public Advocate, with 33%. Because he didn’t receive as much as 40%, he will now participate in a Democratic run-off primary with Mark Green, who got 31%. de Blasio has promised to work for ballot access reform in New York state if he is elected Public Advocate. The cause is personal for him, because last month he was removed from the primary ballot after his petitions were challenged. Later, he successfully contested the order to remove him from the ballot. The run-off primary will be held on September 29.