On March 16, some Florida voting rights groups filed a federal lawsuit against the Florida law that does not permit anyone to submit a voter registration application that doesn’t bear a “wet ink” signature, except through a Motor Vehicle registration office. Vote.org v Byrd, n.d., 4:23cv-111. Here is the Complaint.

The case is assigned to Judge Allen Winsor, a Trump appointee.

The plaintiffs took the considerable trouble to sue each of Florida’s county elections supervisors, as well as the Secretary of State. That is because past experience in Florida voting rights cases have shown that if only the Secretary of State is sued, the Secretary of State will argue that he is not the proper defendant.

On March 7, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee signed HB 1419, which requires statewide initiatives to include a large number of signatures from each of at least fifty counties. Arkansas has seventy-five counties.

Generally, courts have struck down county distribution requirements for all types of statewide petitions. But on August 31, 2022, the Eighth Circuit upheld Nebraska’s county distribution requirement for statewide initiatives. The vote was 2-1. The losing side did not ask for U.S. Supreme Court review, so now it is too late to overturn the Nebraska decision, Eggers v Evnen. Both Nebraska and Arkansas are in the Eighth Circuit. Thanks to Paul Jacob for the news about HB 1419.

The Hill has this article by Benjamin Chavis, Jr., a leader of No Labels. Chavis defends the idea that No Labels might run a presidential nominee in 2024. Thanks to Eric Wong for the link.