Stanford University social science professor Jon A. Krosnick argues that the New Hampshire order of candidates on the Democratic presidential primary ballot injured Barack Obama. See this article. New Hampshire law requires a random drawing of a letter of the alphabet, for each election. For the 2008 presidential primary, the random letter was “z”. No candidate had a surname beginning with “z”. The law also required alphabetical order following the random sample letter, so in actual practice, the Democratic ballot listed candidates in alphabetical order, ranging from “a” to “y”. This put Hillary Clinton 4th from the top, but Barack Obama 4th from the bottom. The ballot had 21 Democratic presidential candidates. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this.

On January 9, the Illinois House concurred in a Senate amendment to the National Popular Vote Plan bill, HB 1685. Therefore, the bill has passed the legislature. Illinois legislative officials frequently take up to 30 days after a bill has passed to send it to the Governor.

A North Carolina Superior Court in Raleigh has scheduled a hearing in Libertarian Party of North Carolina v State Board of Elections for January 30, Wednesday, at 9 am. This case, which includes the Green Party, was filed in 2005 to challenge the ballot access laws for new and previously unqualified parties. The case number is 05-cvs-13073. It will be held in Room 10D of the Wake County Courts Building.

North Carolina requires more signatures for a new party to get on the 2008 ballot than any other state except California. It requires 69,734 signatures, more than even Texas and Oklahoma. The Libertarian Party does now have more than 90,000 signatures, and expects to qualify regardless of how the lawsuit is resolved; but the Green Party and other parties certainly won’t be on the ballot unless this case is won. The lawsuit also challenges the inability of voters to register as members of unqualified parties, an issue which was lost in federal court in North Carolina in 1994, but which has won in New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Iowa, and to a limited extent in Oklahoma.