On September 18, Chris Daggett, independent candidate for Governor of New Jersey in the November 2009 election, filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging that the ballot design in most New Jersey counties severely discriminates against candidates (in the general election) who are not the nominees of a qualified party. No party except the Republican and Democratic Parties has been a qualified party in New Jersey since 1920. Most counties have a column headed “Republican Party” and a column headed “Democratic Party”, and a third column (or several columns) headed “Nomination by petition.” It is easy to overlook voters in the “Nomination by Petition” column. The case is Olson v Corzine, filed in Morris County. UPDATE: Ken Kaplan, the Libertarian candidate for Governor, is a co-plaintiff. See this story.

On September 17, the Indiana State Court of Appeals struck down the 2005 law that requires voters at the polls to show government photo-ID with an expiration date. The vote was 3-0. Here is the 29-page decision. The case is League of Women Voters of Indiana v Rokita, 49A02-0901-cv-40.

The basis for the decision is the Indiana Constitution, which says “The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities which upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.” The Court found that the voter ID law violates that equal protection clause in two ways: (1) absentee voters don’t need to prove their identity, so the law discriminates against voters who vote at the polls; (2) the law gives an exemption to voters who live in a state licensed care facility when that licensed care facility is the location of the polling place for that precinct, so those voters are being treated better than voters who don’t happen to live in the building that houses the polling place.

It is considered inevitable that the Indiana Secretary of State will appeal to the State Supreme Court. This decision, if it survives, is a good model for the pending North Carolina ballot access case, now pending in North Carolina’s State Court of Appeals. Both cases are similar in that federal courts had already upheld the challenged regulations, and the plaintiffs are depending on greater protections found in State Constitutions than in the U.S. Constitution. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

New York city held partisan primaries on September 15. Although it is rare for incumbent City Councilmembers to lose their bids for re-election, four Democratic members were defeated for re-election in the primary. Three of them were defeated partly because Working Families Party activists campaigned against them. See this New York Times article, which says that 350 WFP paid activists spoke to over 62,000 voters during the campaign.