On January 29, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to hear Baylor v Cortes, over whether the “No Party Party” should be on the ballot in the special State Senate election in the 29th district, to be held March 3. The case is Baylor v Cortes, 3 MAP 2009.

Pennsylvania is one of the states in which it is possible for a party to be ballot-qualified in just part of the state. Although being a “qualified party” doesn’t yield many benefits in normal elections, the benefits of being “qualified” are valuable in the case of special elections. All “qualified parties” are on the ballot automatically in special elections. By contrast, in regular elections, only parties with membership of 15% of the state are automatically on.

The “No Party Party” polled 2.2% of the vote in the State Senate election, 29th district, in November 2008. The definition of a party in just part of the state requires that it poll 5% of the winning candidate’s vote. Although the No Party Party didn’t meet that standard in the entire district, it did meet it in two counties in the district, Lehigh and Northampton. Therefore, the No Party Party argues that it should be treated as a qualified party for the entire district. The No Party Party is the creation of Dennis Baylor, the party’s only candidate in 2008. Baylor is representing himself pro se. The lower court had refused to adjudicate this case because of a technical error in his brief.

The Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE) held its annual board meeting in New York city on February 1. Minutes of the meeting will be posted at www.cofoe.org in a few weeks. The board voted to pay the costs of appealing Stevo v Keith to the U.S. Supreme Court. Stevo v Keith challenges the number of signatures needed by independent candidates for U.S. House in Illinois, in election years that end in 4, 6, 8 or 0. Illinois law provides that in election years that end in 2, an independent needs exactly 5,000 signatures. But in other election years, the candidate needs approximately 11,000 signatures. This law has existed for 30 years, and in all those 30 years, no independent for U.S. House qualified in Illinois, whether it was a year that required only 5,000 signatures, or a year which required 11,000. Therefore, Stevo argues there can’t possibly be any real state interest in ever requiring more than 5,000 signatures. He had submitted 7,500 signatures in 2008 and argued that should be enough, but the 7th circuit had upheld the law.

Minnesota Senator John Marty (DFL-Roseville) has introduced SF 395, to provide that Minnesota would use Instant-Runoff Voting for all its federal and state elections.