On October 20, the Georgia Supreme Court heard Handel v Powell, in which the Republican Secretary of State argues that Democratic Public Service Commissioner candidate Jim Powell should be removed from the ballot. Ten days have passed and the Court hasn’t issued any order. Here is an article about the controversy.

On October 29, U.S. District Court Judge Harvey Bartle, a Bush Sr. appointee, issued an injunction, requiring Pennsylvania to furnish emergency paper ballots to any precinct at which at least half the electronic vote-counting machines have broken down. NAACP v Cortes, 08-cv-5048.

The state’s position had been that it would only provide such paper ballots to precincts in which all the machines had ceased to work. The decision says, “Some waiting in line, of course, is inevitable and must be expected. One must always choose between and among a number of candidates for different offices listed on the ballot and often, as in this election, there are questions to be read and considered. All of this takes time. Nonetheless, there can come a point when the burden of standing in a queue ceases to be an inconvenience or annoyance and becomes a constitutional violation because it, in effect, denies a person the right to exercise his or her franchise.” Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for this news.

On October 29, the 6th circuit ruled that the U.S. Constitution prohibits Ohio from banning out-of-state circulators. Nader v Blackwell, 07-4350. Here is the decision. The vote is 3-0, although because of various peculiarities about procedures in this case, each judge wrote separately. Here is a Cincinnati newspaper story about the decision. Thanks to Carter Momberger for the link.

This case has its roots in the 2004 election, when Nader was prevented from being on the ballot because four of his most active circulators seemed not to be domiciled in Ohio. Therefore, all of their signatures had been stricken, and Nader fell below the 5,000 minimum. Technically, this case was filed in 2006, not in 2004, but for all practical purposes it should be considered a resolution of a conflict that began in 2004.

Although Brian Moore this year had won in U.S. District Court against Ohio’s residency requirement, that decision actually did not invalidate the ban on out-of-state circulators. The Ohio ban on out-of-state circulators for independent candidates is not stated explicitly in the law. Instead, the Ohio law requires circulators of independent petitions to be registered voters, and since one may not be a registered voter without being an Ohio resident, the twin requirements are linked in the law. Today’s decision explicitly says that even if Ohio were to amend its law and say that only residents may circulate, that would be as unconstitutional as saying only registered voters may circulate. The decision says on page 14, “No case has been put forward in this litigation as to a compelling state interest in permitting unregistered Ohioans to circulate petitions but not unregistered citizens of other states.” Thanks to Theresa Amato for this news.