On September 27, a U.S. District Court in Arizona ruled in favor of the Libertarian Party, in a case that the party had filed in 2002. Arizona Libertarian Party v Brewer, 02-144-TUC. A link to the opinion is here. The decision says that if a party doesn’t want independents to vote in its primary, it is free to exclude them. In the case of the Arizona Libertarian Party, the party members are massively outnumbered by registered independents, approximately 18,000 to 600,000. The court cited the party’s 2002 primary in the First District for the U.S. House. A non-Libertarian who advocated nationalized health care entered the party’s primary. Party leaders then recruited a candidate who actually supports the party platform. Although the candidate who supported the party platform won the primary 286-243 over the candidate who didn’t support the party platform, the judge ruled that letting independents vote in the party’s primary could easily have tilted the outcome. The decision also notes that a U.S. District Court in Virginia had ruled that Republicans in that state have a constitutional right to exclude non-members. The decision did not mention the more recent similar decision from Mississippi on behalf of Mississippi Democrats.

According to this story, backers of a California initiative to let each U.S. House district elect its own elector have dropped their plans to qualify that initiative for the ballot. Lack of funds is the chief cause.

On September 24, GOOOH (Get Out of Our House!) endorsed HR 3600, the congressional bill to outlaw restrictive ballot access laws in congressional elections. Ron Paul had endorsed it on September 19. The bill has now been introduced in 9 sessions of Congress.

GOOOH is a new organization that wants to run, or to endorse, a non-major party candidate for U.S. House in all districts in the nation in 2008. This goal mirrors Unity08’s goal, except that Unity08 only wants to concentrate on the presidential election, but GOOOH wants to concentrate only on the U.S. House. For more information about GOOOH, see www.goooh.com. Thanks to the commenter below who corrected the web address for me.