The nation is waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Indiana’s law requiring government Photo-ID for voters at the polls. The New York Times of February 3 ran this important op-ed by former President Jimmy Carter and James A. Baker III, co-chairs of the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform. The op-ed is important, because the Commission had recommended that states require photo voter-ID at the polls. However, the op-ed reminds us all that the Commission had recommended that states take five years to phase in the requirement, and that states provide full assistance to voters who don’t already have such ID. The Commission had even recommended that state or local government employees visit the homes of such voters to provide such assistance. Since Indiana defended its law with repeated reference to the Commission’s recommendations, this op-ed could influence the pending U.S. Supreme Court opinion.

On February 1, U.S. District Court Judge Michael W. Mosman ruled that an Oregon referendum petition should be rejected, even though the group that circulated that petition had evidence that many so-called invalid signatures should have been counted. Lemons v Bradbury, cv-07-1782-MO. Judge Mosman is a Bush Jr. appointee. Here is the opinion, which the judge rendered from the bench (it is actually a transcript).

The decision came to the opposite conclusion of the Rhode Island Supreme Court in a 2004 lawsuit called Edwards v Rhode Island Board of Elections. In the 2004 Rhode Island case, the State Supreme Court ruled that validly registered voters whose signatures were rejected, but who really had signed the petition, had a right to submit affidavits affirming that their signature really was their signature. In that case, the decision resulted in putting John Edwards on the Democratic presidential primary ballot. In the Oregon case, the result is that a referendum to stop a state law on civil unions will not go ahead.

Judge Mosman said that since the state uses random sampling on initiative and referendum petitions anyway, not every signature really “counts”, because most signatures are omitted from the random sample. Furthermore, he said a valid signature might not be counted because the circulator afterwards may fail to file that sheet. The judge was also influenced by the state’s argument that it has so many signatures to check (in the period when there are lots of initiatives being submitted) that it simply doesn’t have the capacity to notify signers when their signature has been rejected, and give that signer a chance to contest the finding.

This case shows the inherent problems with using petitions to determine if a candidate or an issue should be on a ballot. Great Britain and Canada don’t face this problem for candidates, since they depend on filing fees, rather than petitions, for candidate ballot access (although both nations require petitions, the requirement is only 10 signatures in Britain, and 100 in Canada).