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.

The New York Times of September 23 has this interview with Ralph Nader, written by Katherine Seelye. The title is “Nader, Drawing Votes – from McCain.” The article itself does not actually present the data to support its title, but notes that Nader makes this allegation and accepts it. UPDATE: the New York Times piece has been revised and improved on this point; the link above goes to the updated Times article. Thanks very much to reporter Katherine Seelye for pointing this out. Seelye is a heroine of the ballot access movement. In 1997, she publicized in the Times the story of how the Pennsylvania legislature had quadupled the number of signatures, by amending another election law bill in a 3 a.m. session. The publicity engendered by her story lead to Governor Tom Ridge vetoing that repressive election law bill.

The article says Nader only received one-third of the vote for president in 2004. Actually, he got .381%. It would be more accurate to say he got .4%, or possibly to say he got three-eighths of 1%. He received 465,650 votes, out of a total vote for president of 122,295,345. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for the link.

On September 22, U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton granted injunctive relief to Bob Barr and the Massachusetts Libertarian Party, and ordered them placed on the ballot. Barr v Galvin, 08-11340. The decision is eleven pages long. It says, “No public interest is served in having the wrong nominees on the ballot. Indeed, conversely, the public interest is advanced by including the right nominees on the ballot to avoid voter confusion. The Secretary asserts an interest in protecting the integrity of the election process but that interest is not threatened here.” Here is the text.

Although there has been some internal discord and disunity in the Libertarian Party this year, the Massachusetts lawsuit was a model of Libertarian unity. George Phillies, the stand-in listed on the Massachusetts Libertarian petition, helped win this lawsuit. Phillies is on the board of the Massachusetts ACLU, and the Massachusetts ACLU handled this case. Phillies himself gave testimony in support of the lawsuit.