On September 23, U.S. District Court Judge James Brady ruled that Bob Barr should be on the Louisiana ballot, but that co-plaintiff Brian Moore (Socialist Party nominee) should not be on. The case is Libertarian Party et al v Dardenne, 08-cv-582. The judge stayed his opinion for two days to give the state a chance to appeal to the 5th circuit.

Judge Brady differentiated between Barr and Moore by noting that the Libertarian Party is a ballot-qualified party, whereas the Socialist Party is not. He said the law gives a qualified party a three-day grace period, but that the law does not extend that to unqualified parties. The written decision is not available yet; the judge spoke orally. The written opinion should be available by 5 p.m. central time.

The judge also mentioned that one of the Socialist Party elector candidates omitted his address from the form, although that does not seem to have been a determining factor.

Some Oregon activists who care about minor parties and independent candidates have created this webpage, to assist the campaign against the “top-two” initiative on the Oregon ballot.

On September 23, the Texas Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order in the case called “In re Bob Barr, Wayne Allyn Root and the Libertarian Party of Texas.” All it says is “The following petition for writ of mandamus is denied.” Presumably there will be an opinion to follow. Case number 08-0761. The case had been filed to obtain the Secretary of State’s explanation for ignoring statutory deadlines for the Democratic and Republican Parties to certify their national tickets. A side benefit of filing the lawsuit had been to create a record (for historial purposes) that the two major parties were indeed late this year in Texas. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this story.