9th Circuit Re-writes Decision on Registering Voters in Veterans Hospitals

Posted on by January 7, 2009
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Back on August 8, 2008, the 9th circuit had upheld Veterans Administration rules that prevented the Democratic Party from sending in volunteers to register voters who live in Veterans Administration Hospitals and Homes. The party then asked for a rehearing en banc.

On December 22, the request for a rehearing was denied, but the original decision was modified. Now, it only pertains to VA buildings in which all the residents have significant medical needs, and are likely to need medical attention at any instant. Also the decision was modified to make it clear that if any resident of a VA facility wishes to register voters in that same facility, that can only be settled by a new, different lawsuit.

7th Circuit Affirms Importance of All Valid Votes, Whether They Affect Who Wins or Not

Posted on by January 7, 2009
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On October 8, the 7th circuit handed down a decision in Kozuszek v Brewer, 546 F 3d 485. The issue was whether two particular voters should have been allowed to vote, back in November 2003. The U.S. District Court had ruled against the two voters, and had also added that “there is no evidence that any elected position in the election was decided by two or less votes”, implying that even if the two voters had been unjustly prevented from voting, so what?

The 7th circuit denied relief to the two voters, but it explicitly disagreed with the U.S. District Court’s philosophy. The 7th circuit wrote, “An official who willfully interferes with an individual’s ability to express his or her political preferences at the ballot box violates the Constitution.” This language will be helpful if and when any lawsuits are filed against jurisdictions that willfully refused to count valid write-in votes for president in last November’s election. Such lawsuits are likely to be filed against both the District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania.

Ohio Governor Vetoes Last Election Law Bill Passed by Outgoing Legislature

Posted on by January 7, 2009
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On the evening of January 6, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland vetoed SB 380, an election law bill passed by the outgoing legislature. It dealt with early voting procedures, and procedures for reconciling discrepancies in the voter registration database and other government databases (voter registration and Social Security records). Strickland said the issues are too complicated to have been dealt with in a bill that was rushed into passage before the old legislature adjourned.

As many readers already know, Ohio has no valid ballot access law for new political parties. The outgoing session of the Ohio legislature took the trouble to pass a bill dealing with voter registration, and yet not one state legislator introduced a bill on the gap in the state’s ballot access laws.

Study Shows Democratic Judges Were Just as Likely to Put Nader on Ballot in 2004 as Republican Judges

Posted on by January 7, 2009
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The Election Law Journal, volume 7, number 4 (December 2008) has an article, “Judicial Decision-Making in Nader’s Ballot Access Litigation” by Kyle C. Kopko. The article is 24 pages long. It concludes, in part, “Although much of the judicial politics literature indicates that judges behave in a partisan manner when deciding cases that involve a partisan interest, this did not occur in the context of Ralph Nader’s 2004 ballot access litigation…Even those judges who donated money to the Democratic or Republican Parties, the very individuals who should be the most partisan of all the judges included in the dataset, were not predisposed to rule in a way that favored their own political party.”

In other words, even though Ralph Nader was perceived in 2004 to injure Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, Democratic judges were just as likely to rule in favor of Nader as Republican judges. The article studies all the state court decisions on whether Nader should have been on the 2004 ballot.

The article, of course, does not deal with the issue of whether Nader actually injured John Kerry’s campaign. An analysis in the January 1, 2005 (printed) Ballot Access News suggests that Nader did not, in fact, injure Kerry.

Deadlines for Introducing Bills are Rapidly Approaching

Posted on by January 7, 2009
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Many state legislatures have rigid deadlines for introducing bills. Those deadlines were in December 2008 in Indiana, Iowa, and Oklahoma. A previous post had said that the Indiana deadline was in mid-January, but actually it was on December 15. Therefore, it is already too late to introduce a ballot access improvement bill in Indiana in 2009. However, Indiana has one-year legislative sessions, so it will be possible to seek sponsors for bills to be introduced in late 2009 for the 2010 session. State Senator Sue Landske (R-Lake County) has already shown some interest in improving Indiana ballot access.

States with January 2009 deadlines for bills to be introduced this year are: Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wyoming.

States with February 2009 deadlines are: Arizona, California, Kentucky, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah, and Vermont.