The U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing three election law cases this year, and possibly some early next year. The three that will definitely be heard are:

1. Federal Election Commission v Wisconsin Right to Life, on whether the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Law is unconstitutional as applied, in the case of not-for-profit corporations that want to run broadcast ads within 60 days of an election that mention candidates without asking viewers to vote for or against them. This will be argued April 25. Amici briefs in favor of the FEC have been filed by the League of Women Voters, three law professors, the Committee for Economic Development, and U.S. Senator John McCain. Amici briefs in favor of Wisconsin Right to Life have been filed by the Center for Competitive Politics, Citizens United, U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Family Research Council, the Coalition of Public Charities, the National Rifle Association, the National Association of Realtors, the Republican National Committee, the American Center for Law and Justice, Focus on the Family, the Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Alliance for Justice.

2. New York State Board of Elections v Lopez Torres, on New York state procedures for judicial candidates (or their slates of delegates) to run in party primaries. New York Board of Elections’ brief is due May 7; Lopez Torres’ brief is due July 11; argument is likely in October or November 2007.

3. Washington State v Republican Party of Washington, on the “top-two” primary. Washington state’s brief is due May 14; the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian Party briefs are due August 6; argument is likely in October or November 2007.

In addition, two interesting cert petitions are pending:

1. Underwood v Guam, filed by the 2006 Democratic Party candidate for Governor of Guam, seeks a ruling that over-votes are “votes cast”, and therefore no one got a majority in the November 2006 election and Guam should have held a run-off. Guam’s response to the request that the U.S. Supreme Court hear this case is due April 18.

2. Kidwell v City of Union, Ohio, over whether a city government can spend taxpayer money advertising for a “no” vote on an initiative. The city has responded to Kidwell’s cert petition.

The Court will probably decide in May or June whether to hear either the Guam case or the Kidwell case.

Bills in Vermont to use Instant Runoff Voting for at least one particular statewide race have not advanced. Therefore, neither H196 nor SB108 can pass this year. The chief impediment was the Secretary of State’s conclusion that making the change would cost too much money. The Vermont legislature has been pondering IRV for state and federal elections since 1999.

Parties that wish to appear on the Georgia statewide ballot in 2008 are permitted to start circulating their statewide petition, effective April 8, 2007. The law permits the statewide party petition to circulate during the 15 months prior to the deadline. The petition requires 44,089 signatures. A trap for unsuspecting parties is the Georgia law regarding notary publics. Georgia petitions must be notarized. If a notary himself or herself circulates the petition (even a single sheet), then all of that individual’s notarization work is invalid. This trap was responsible for the failure of the Constitution Party’s 1996 Georgia statewide petition, and also for that year’s Natural Law Party petition. Each of them did the difficult work of collecting almost 50,000 raw signatures, only to have all that work wasted, because in each case a Notary Public who signed off on a large share of the signatures had himself or herself also circulated a few sheets.

The Libertarian Party is already on the statewide Georgia ballot. The Georgia Green Party is about to hold a state convention, which will serve as a kickoff for its own petition. The statewide petition need not carry the names of any candidates; it is simply a petition to qualify the party for statewide ballot status.