On the afternoon of December 5, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it had accepted two particular cases. The Court had held a conference earlier in the day to consider which cases to accept. The Court did not release any orders concerning the cases it rejected. That will not be released until Monday, December 8.

Since the Court did not accept any case concerning the eligibility of Senator Barack Obama to be president, it is extremely likely that the Court’s order list of December 8 will show that it denied the New Jersey case on that subject.

The only four presidential candidates who filed for write-in status in Illinois this year are candidates who were not on the ballot in any state. Illinois has very cumbersome procedures for filing as a declared write-in for any statewide office. Unlike any other state, Illinois provides that candidates must file with each county. Consequently, presidential candidates who weren’t on the ballot in Illinois, but who were on the ballot in certain other states, simply skipped Illinois. Therefore, there are no Illinois write-in results for Alan Keyes, or Brian Moore, or Roger Calero, or Charles Jay, or Gloria La Riva (La Riva didn’t file for write-in status in any state).

The four who did file are Frank Moore, Ronald G. Hobbs, Donald K. Allen, and (in one county only), a Ron Paul slate. Frank Moore got two in Cook County and one in Lake County. Allen got one in Peoria County, one in DuPage County, and one in Cook County. Hobbs got 3 in Cook County and one in Marion County. The Ron Paul elector slate got one in Pope County. Probably the people who filed it, only filed in that one small county.

It would be beneficial if Illinois would change its write-in filing law, to provide that a write-in candidate for statewide office only needs to file with the State Board of Elections. It is absurd to force such candidates to file in each county in which they wish their write-ins to be counted. Illinois has 102 counties.

Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, posted on December 4 his own opinion that the way to solve the D.C. voting rights problem is to return D.C. to Maryland, or else add it to Virginia. He writes, “To me, the more obvious solution is to simply have D.C. annexed by either Maryland or Virginia. Can someone explain why that option is either ignored or a non-starter?” See www.dailykos.com, the posting made at 3 p.m. Pacific time on December 4.