On October 13, the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department granted approval to Arizona’s new law that requires all cities in the state to use non-partisan elections for their own officers. However, there is still no certainty that Tucson (the only city in Arizona that has been using partisan elections) will be required to switch to non-partisan elections. The city is in state court, arguing that the law violates the Arizona Constitution. The judge in that case has already signed an order, letting the city’s 2009 election be run under the old, original partisan election method.

The Justice Department’s action contrasts with its action in August 2009, of not permitting the city of Kinston, North Carolina, to switch from partisan city elections to non-partisan city elections. That decision has received much attention in the last week, because Rush Limbaugh and the Washington Times publicized it. Kinston city officials are free to ask the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to override the Justice Department, but they have not done so.

The Federal Election Commission has just released its book, “Federal Elections 2008”, which has election returns for President and Congress. There is no publication that takes greater pains to capture write-in votes. Even Congressional Quarterly’s “America Votes” doesn’t include, for example, the Rhode Island November 2008 presidential write-ins. Rhode Island is one of the states that doesn’t have a write-in declaration of write-in candidacy form, so the state tallies all write-ins. The book reveals that in Rhode Island, Hillary Clinton received 655 write-ins, and Ron Paul received 472 write-ins.

Copies of the book are free and are available from the FEC, phone 800-424-9530.

On October 21, the Virginia State Board of Elections voted to count the disputed 2,000 overseas ballots cast in the November 2008 election. A U.S. District Court earlier this month had ordered the Board to count them. They had not been counted previously because state law says they arrived too late, but the court ruling said the state should have mailed them out earlier.

It will be interesting to see how the results compare to the statewide vote as a whole. The results will show if overseas absentee ballots differ politically from regular Virginia voters.

It is still possible that the state will appeal the ruling to the 4th circuit. If the state has decided to appeal, it has not yet made this known to the public.