At least two lawsuits are pending over the Post Office’s regulation that bans petitioning on interior Post Office sidewalks. The case filed in 2000 is still in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., but is likely to have an opinion soon. That case is Initiative & Referendum Institute v U.S. Postal Service, 00-cv-1246.

The other case is Del Gallo v Parent, 08-1511. It had a hearing in the 1st circuit on December 1. One of the three judges seemed favorable to the post office regulation; one judge seemed favorable to the plaintiff (who was petitioning to get on the Massachusetts Republican primary ballot); and one judge didn’t seem to reveal his thoughts. The case arose in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. A decision in this case is probably several months away.

The Pennsylvania state elections office has released partial write-in totals from the November 2008 presidential election. The state office only tabulated write-ins for Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul, and Chuck Baldwin. Clinton received 4,724; Paul 3,527; Baldwin 986; others 8,180.

Only 49 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties reported any write-ins, which means the other 18 counties, including Philadelphia, unlawfully ignored them. Thanks to Blyden Potts for retrieving these returns. Pennsylvania is the only large state which doesn’t have a law requiring write-in candidates to request that their write-ins be counted. Thus, in theory, all write-ins are valid in Pennsylvania and all ought to be counted. It is likely that anyone who wants to find a partial total for other presidential candidates, such as Cynthia McKinney, could spend additional time looking at the returns sent in by each county to Harrisburg, and could pull out more votes from the 8,180 “other” category.

Ralph Nader has this essay in the weekend edition of Counterpunch (Dec. 19-21). The essay criticizes Scholastic Magazine’s policy of distributing sample ballots and educational material that include Democratic and Republican nominees, but exclude all others. Although Scholastic Magazine is private, its material is distributed in public schools.