On September 18, the Mississippi Supreme Court said that the Class I U.S. Senate seat should be near the top of the ballot, near the presidential race and the Class II U.S. Senate seat. However, it declined to order state officials to implement this opinion. However, later on the day, Governor Haley Barbour and the Secretary of State said they would change the ballot to conform to the Mississippi Supreme Court’s Opinion. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for this news.

The lawsuit was called Barbour v Berger. It had been filed initially because the Governor and the Secretary of State had proposed to put the Class I U.S. Senate seat near the bottom of the ballot, after local races and local ballot questions. The Class I U.S. Senate seat is hotly contested. Critics of the original decision said the motivation was to minimize the number of votes cast in that race, because some voters don’t bother voting on the entire ballot.

On September 18, the Texas Supreme Court asked the Texas Secretary of State, and the Texas Democratic and Republican Parties, to respond to Bob Barr’s lawsuit over the fact that the two major parties did not certify their national tickets on time. The response is due September 22 at 3 p.m. Thanks to Angela Grover for this news.

On the evening of September 17, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HB 6625 unanimously. It tells the Veterans Administration to permit groups to enter VA facilities in order to register people who live at those facilities. However, such groups must be non-partisan.

A companion bill, S 3308, has passed the Senate Rules Committee. Thanks to Scott Rafferty for this news.