It is possible that the U.S. Supreme Court will have heard and decided six election cases in the period February through June 2008.

1. Washington State v Washington State Republican Party, 06-730, was argued on October 1, 2007, and will likely produce an opinion in February or March.

2. Crawford v Marion County Bd. of Elections (the Indiana photo voter-ID case), 07-21, was argued on January 9, 2008, and will result in an opinion in the next four months.

3. Governor Bob Riley v Kennedy, 07-77, will be argued on March 24, 2008, and will produce an opinion before the Court adjourns in June 2008. This case tests the interplay of the Voting Rights Act Pre-Clearance provision and state court decisions, and originates in an Alabama dispute over whether the Governor had a right to fill a vacancy in a county commission, or whether there should have been a special election.

4. Jack Davis v FEC, 07-320, will be argued on April 22, and will probably produce a decision in June 2008. This case challenges the relaxation of campaign finance contribution limits when one of the candidates contributes at least $350,000 to his or her own campaign.

5. Bartlett v Strickland, 07-689, is a legislative districting case from North Carolina. The Court will decide on February 15 whether to hear the case. The Court seems interested, since on January 15 it asked the other side to respond. The issue is whether the Voting Rights Act can be used to establish districts with a likely African-American winner (for the purpose of assisting African-Americans), even though the district itself is not majority African-American.

6. Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 07-953, tests whether a movie that seems to criticize a candidate for federal office can advertise itself without having to disclose the names of people who spent money making the movie. The movie in question is “Hillary: The Movie.” The film is intended for showing in movie theaters, just as “Fahrenheit 9/11” was shown in movie theaters during an election year, 2004. The lower court ruled that since the movie’s purpose is to persuade people not to vote for Hillary Clinton, advertising for the movie is controlled by federal campaign finance regulations. The movie’s producers argue that there should be no distinction made between their movie and Fahrenheit 9/11. The US Supreme Court will decide on February 15 whether to hear this case.

The Court is not sitting until February 19 (the Tuesday after President’s Day Holiday), so we won’t know what the court has done on February 15, until February 19.

On January 31, Mayor Bloomberg said not only that he is not a candidate for president, but that he will not become a candidate for president. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones.

The Reform Institute, associated somewhat with U.S. Senator John McCain, released “Presidential Ballot Access: A State by State Scorecard” on January 30. The 70-page report can be seen here. The Report condemns restrictive ballot access laws, and for that, it is praiseworthy.

Unfortunately, the state-by-state pages are massively inaccurate. The only accurate pages are for Connecticut, Iowa, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Some of the errors say that the state requirements are easier than they actually are, while others say they are much harder than they actually are. The North Carolina page says an independent presidential candidate needs 15,000 signatures. Sadly, the actual number is 69,734. For California, the report says all a new party needs to do, to get on the ballot, is file a list of its state officers. Actually it must persuade 88,991 people to register as members.

But most of the errors portray state laws as worse than they actually are. For example, the report says a qualified party in Mississippi is one that got 20% of the vote in the last presidential election. Actually any party that submits a list of state officers, and U.S. House district officers, and a copy of its Bylaws, may be recognized.

Ballot Access News editor Richard Winger repeatedly contacted the Reform Institute, over several months last year, offering to help with the report, but those phone calls were never returned.