The Atlanta Journal-Constititution reports:

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr has lost the first clash in his strange Texas fight to keep John McCain and Barack Obama off the ballot in that state.

Campaign manager Russ Verney put out word this afternoon that the Barr campaign’s request for an emergency stay, to block the mailing of ballots to overseas military personnel, has been rejected.

The Texas attorney general successfully argued that an order to halt the shipping of ballots would violate the voting rights of those in the armed services.

Barr contends that the Democratic and Republican nominees are disqualified from appearing on the Texas ballot because they missed the state’s Aug. 26 deadline to certify candidates. Obama was not formally named the Democratic candidate until an Aug. 27 vote in Denver. McCain claimed the Republican nomination on Sept. 3 in St. Paul.

Barr, who was kept off the West Virginia ballot because of a missed deadline, says turnabout is fair play.

The news media has been tentative with this story, uncertain whether the Barr lawsuit is a legal move with profound implications — Texas has 34 electoral votes — or another wispy courtroom sideshow.

But the Dallas Morning News on Thursday had these paragraphs:

The Supreme Court has refused to dismiss the case outright and has asked all parties to file their response to the lawsuit by Monday.

Part of the legal basis for the suit is Bush vs. Gore, by which the U.S. Supreme Court held that “the clearly expressed intent of the legislature must prevail,” and that election laws must be uniformly applied and interpreted.

“Sound familiar Mr. Bush? Sound familiar Republicans?” Mr. Barr said, adding that the state law is unambiguous.

“The Libertarian Party like other parties and independent candidates always face a struggle to get on the ballot and are sometimes excluded from the ballot for the most minor of details,” said state party chairman Patrick Dixon. “We may not like the rules, but we have to play by them.”

Meanwhile, Republicans in Pennsylvania have decided to appeal a judge’s decision last week that permitted Barr to remain on the ballot in that state.

Libertarian activists are finding many valid signatures in Connecticut that had been invalidated by town clerks. As noted earlier, the town clerks had initially found that the petition only had a 54% validity rate, and that the party’s presidential petition is 501 signatures short. At the rate activists are finding valid signatures that seem to have been invalidated in error, the evidence that the petition really does have enough valid signatures should be in hand by September 22.

On September 18, a U.S. District Court in South Carolina refused to put Eugene Platt on the ballot for state house, as the Green Party nominee. South Carolina permits fusion. However, the law says that if a candidate seeks the nomination of two different parties, he or she must win both of them, or will be unable to accept either party nomination. Eugene Platt won the Green Party nomination in April. Then he tried for the Democratic nomination, but he lost the June primary. Now he can’t run at all. This is a serious blow to the South Carolina Green Party. Platt is a local office-holder and some believed that he could have won the state legislative race.

It is peculiar that a state which permits fusion, would at the same time have a rule that says if a candidates tries to get the nomination of two parties, that candidate must win both, or can’t run at all. One doubts that Platt would be off the ballot if he had first won the Democratic nomination, and then tried and failed to get the Green Party nomination. Thanks to David Gillespie for this news.