On September 29, 2006, Ralph Nader filed a lawsuit against Ohio’s law that requires circulators to be registered voters. The Ohio law on this subject is clearly unconstitutional, because in 1999 the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that states cannot require initiative circulators to be registered voters. Nader v Blackwell, 2:06cv821. The case is not moot because Nader (who was injured by this law in 2004) is suing for damages (of $1).

An earlier lawsuit filed by Nader supporters in 2004 did not ever get a substantive ruling, because the judge refused to rule, on the grounds that some of Nader’s circulators had been deceptive about their domicile.

Three Arizona Libertarian candidates, and the party, sued in state court on September 28, over Maricopa County’s failure to tally all write-ins at the party’s primary on September 12. Two State Senate candidates are each short two write-ins in order to be nominated, and a candidate for Justice of the Peace is short one write-in. Unopposed write-in candidates at party primaries must not only outpoll any opponents, they must receive a certain number of write-ins, to be considered nominated.

Maricopa County already found some more write-ins to enable one of the party’s congressional candidates to be nominated. The case is Arizona Libertarian Party v Brewer, Superior Ct., Maricopa Co., cv-2006-14637. A hearing is set for 10 am, Oct. 2.

The Republican Party’s national convention in 2008 will be in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The party announced this decision on September 27. Democrats haven’t chosen their city yet. This is only the 2nd time Minnesota will have hosted a major party presidential convention. See the June 1, 2006 Ballot Access News for a chart showing the locations and dates of post-Civil War major party national conventions.