On Sep. 27, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that elections officials must carry out validation of initiative petitions, whether they think the initiative would be valid law if it passed or not. The case is Liberty Lobby of Idaho v Wright, 31792.

The case arose several years ago when an initiative to regulate marijuana was circulated. County elections officials refused to process the petitions on the grounds that if the initiative got on the ballot and passed, it would contradict federal law. The Idaho Supreme Court said elections officials must process all initiative petitions, regardless of their content. The lower court had not only refused any relief, it had ruled that the lawsuit was frivolous, but that lower court decision has now been overturned.

Ryan Davidson, Chairman of Liberty Lobby of Idaho (no connection with the old right-wing Liberty Lobby) says the decision has breathed new life into the campaign.

On October 3, a lower Arizona state court refused to require the Maricopa County elections department to check again for possible missing write-ins.

Libertarians running in the September primary for two legislative seats and one Justice of the Peace seat were only one or two write-ins short of having enough to be considered nominated. However, the Libertarians couldn’t actually identify any particular voters who said they had cast a write-in vote that wasn’t counted.

The Pennylvania State Supreme Court today entered a one-sentence order, denying the Green Party an injunction to get on the statewide ballot this November. Pennsylvania thus joins New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Alabama, is one of 4 states this year which is holding a statewide partisan election and has no minor party or independent candidates on that statewide ballot.

The issue in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was how many signatures were actually required this year, 67,070 or 15,494. Romanelli’s attorney, Lawrence Otter, argued that state elections officials should have used a 2005 judicial retention election for Justice Sandra Newman, a move that would have resulted in a signature requirement of 15,494. The Green candidate had originally submitted nominating petitions, which he said, contained 100,000 signatures. After a review by state elections officials and litigation before Commonwealth Court, thousands of those signatures were ruled invalid, leaving him at least 9,000 short of the required total.

The best hope for Pennsylvania ballot access reform now lies with the rehearing pending in the 3rd circuit, which almost certainly won’t be decided until after the election. They also plan to appeal on other issues. In a separate appeal of the original Commonwealth Court ruling, Romanelli is challenging the validity of the overall statewide registration system and argues that his due process rights were denied as he tried to rehabilitate thousands of signatures ruled invalid in the painstaking review before the court. Of course, lobbying for a better law may work also; the Pennsylvania ballot access group has been very vigorous.