Tenth Circuit US Court of Appeals Upholds Wyoming 300 Feet Electioneering Ban Outside Election Day Polling Places

Posted on by October 24, 2023
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Tenth Circuit Upholds Wyoming Electioneering Law is the opinion issued today, Monday, October 23, 2023. Here is the 64-page opinion.

The decision does not decide whether the 300 foot limit is constitutional for places in which early voting is occurring. The panel sent the case back to the U.S. District Court to consider that.

This has bad implications for people circulating political petitions, as petitioning is included as a prohibited activity in Wyoming’s electioneering law. Polling places can be outstanding petitioning locations, as everyone going in or out should be a registered voter.

I have had some outstanding petitioning days outside polling places. On August 8, 2023, the day of the Issue 1 Constitutional Amendment vote in Ohio, I gathered 350 signatures in 13 hours outside a Toledo high school.

On Election Day 1996, at the polling place at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, I gathered 1,179 signatures (the polling place was too small for the number of voters voting there, and a line formed outside that lasted many hours).

With a 100 foot electioneering ban from a polling place’s entrance door (which was the case in Ohio, with an even shorter required distance in North Carolina, as I recollect), petitioning for good numbers is feasible. But, a 300 foot ban would greatly reduce feasible signature production.

I also question why petitioning should be banned within any distance of a polling place’s entrance door, as long as the petitioner is not blocking anyone’s entrance or exit from the polling place and the subject of the petition is not on the ballot on that day’s election.

Thanks to electionlawblog.org for the original post on this.

Argentina Presidential Election Headed to Runoff Vote on Sunday, November 19

Posted on by October 23, 2023
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Argentina’s Presidential Election did not produce a winning candidate on Sunday, October 22, 2023, because no candidate received at least 45% of the vote or received at least 40% of the vote with at least a 10 percentage point lead over the second place candidate. So, progressive candidate Sergio Massa (with 36% of the vote) and somewhat libertarian candidate Javier Milei (at 30%) will proceed to a runoff election to be won by plurality vote on Sunday, November 19.

Here is a story.

Here is the Wikipedia article on this election.