On December 10, a Democratic Party activist sued the Michigan Democratic Party, and the Michigan Secretary of State, over the fact that the Democratic presidential primary will not include Joe Biden, John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson. The plaintiff alleges that she wishes to vote for one of them (she doesn’t say which one). Her complaint cites public opinion polling data that shows 44% of Michigan voters who plan to vote in the Democratic primary would like to vote for one of those four.

The case is Martha Hayes v Michigan Democratic Party, 1:07-cv-1237, filed in U.S. District Court, western district, southern division. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.

There will be another federal lawsuit filed after the primary by at least one minor political party, over the fact that the list of presidential primary voters will be given to the Democratic and Republican Parties and no one else. The ACLU will sponsor that case.

On December 11, Ohio held a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 5th district. The vote is Latta, Republican, 56.9%; Weirauch, Democrat, 42.9%. No third choice was on the ballot. A declared write-in candidate, John Green, received .2%.

In November 2006, the vote for this seat had been Republican 56.8%, Democratic 43.2%.

If all goes as planned, the lawsuit challenging the Tennessee ballot access law for new and previously unqualified parties will be filed in federal court on December 21. The law is so restrictive, no third party has been qualified since 1972. Tennessee is one of only two states in which no party (other than the Democrats and Republicans) has been ballot-qualified in the last 25 years, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties. The other such state is New Jersey (also, Georgia has only had qualified minor parties for statewide office, not district office).

This lawsuit should have been filed seven months ago, but the attorney who was going to do it became ill, and a new attorney had to be found.