On August 28, U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby held a hearing in Hoffman v Dunlap, no. 08-cv-279. The question is whether Hoffman, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate, should be on the ballot. Hoffman’s co-plaintiffs include 14 voters who signed his petition, including some voters whose signatures were stricken simply because they had signed the same sheet on which another voter had signed and then had said that Herb Hoffman had not been watching when that signature was placed on the petition. The Secretary of State, and a lower state court in Maine, had only invalidated the 3 signatures of the people who had signed and then said that Hoffman had not been watching them sign. But the Maine Supreme Judicial Court had invalidated all 90 signatures on the same 3 sheets, which put Hoffman below the required 4,000 signatures.

The federal case argues that the rights of the signers who signed the same sheets are being violated by an arbitrary disallowance of their signatures for no valid reason. The federal case also argues that the law on witnessing signatures is unconstitutionally vague. Judge Hornby said he will rule by close of business on Friday, August 29.

On August 27, the Georgia Secretary of State acknowledged that Michelle Conlon does have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot as an independent candidate for the State House, district 80. The law requires a petition of 5% of the number of registered voters. In July, Conlon was told that she only had 976 valid signatures. Now, however, the state agrees that she has 1,075 valid signatures. The requirement in the 80th district is 1,027.

Conlon is backed by the state Democratic Party. The incumbent in this district, Mike Jacobs, had been elected as a Democrat in 2006, but he switched to the Republican Party in 2007. Democrats were naturally eager to win the seat back, but the candidate who had been expected to win the Democratic primary this year was disqualified because of evidence that he was not a resident of the district. Thus, if the independent petition had not succeeded, the voters would have been left with only one candidate on the November ballot. Thanks to Kyle Bennett for this news.

A U.S. District Court in Massachusetts will hold a hearing in Barr v Galvin on September 12. The issue is whether the U.S. Constitution requires states to permit stand-ins for president and vice-president on petitions. Massachusetts permitted stand-ins in 1980, 1996, 2000 and 2004. Also Massachusetts told the Libertarian Party in 2007 that stand-ins are permitted. Therefore, a side issue, separate from the constitutional issue, is whether the state violates due process by changing its mind after it was virtually too late for the Libertarian Party to start an entirely new petition.