The September 7 issue of The Militant (weekly newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party) has this editorial, supporting privacy for people who signed Referendum 71 in Washington state this year. Referendum 71 was put on the ballot by groups who want to repeal the protections for same-sex couples that the legislature passed earlier this year. A federal court is considering whether the names and addresses of the people who signed the petition should be made public.

On August 31, Free & Equal posted a specific condemnation of how New York state petition challenge procedures are keeping an unusually large number of Libertarian, Green, and independent candidates off the ballot in city and county elections this year.

On September 1, Free & Equal sent the contents of that post, in the form of a press release, to over 1,000 media outlets in New York state.

On September 1, the Northern Mariana Islands Election Commission voted to change the ballot format in future elections (including this year’s gubernatorial election) from a party column format, to an office-group format. See this story.

The party column format promulgated a few weeks ago put the Republican column and the Covenant Party column on the front side of the ballot. The Democratic Party column, and independent columns, were on the back of the ballot. That lead to a protest, which caused the Commission to reverse itself.