The oldest constitutional election law case still pending is Initiative & Referendum Institute v U.S. Postal Service, which was filed in 2000 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. It is still in that court.

On December 7, the court will review the recent survey results. The Court had earlier asked both sides to work together to survey postmasters, to see whether there is First Amendment activity on internal post office sidewalks. To the extent that postmasters report that people do petition in these sidewalks, or do pass out leaflets, or engage in other First Amendment activity, that bolsters the plaintiffs. If such sidewalks fit in the “traditional public fora” category, then such First Amendment activity is protected. Public sidewalks in general have had such protection since a famous 1939 U.S. Supreme Court opinion, C.I.O. v Hague.

On November 28, the New York State Court of Appeals agreed to hear Conroy v State Committee of the Independence Party. This is the internal dispute between the state Independence Party and the New York city branches of that party.

The same Court had agreed to hear a similar case, Master (Chair of the Working Families Party) v Pohanka, on October 18, 2007.

Both cases are over whether a state party can have bylaws that take control over local nominations away from the local officers of the party, and lodge that control in the hands of the state officers. There have been surprisingly few court decisions around the nation over this issue, during the last 100 years.

As of November 30, the North Carolina Libertarian Party has 86,400 signatures on its petition to be on the 2008 ballot. The legal requirement is 69,734. Libertarians estimate they need 95,000 raw signatures. The validity rate has been running at 73%, which is fairly good. This petition has been underway for over two years. Fortunately North Carolina lets a group takes as long as 3.5 years to get the job done. In the meantime, the lawsuit in state court against the petition requirement is still pending.