While I was gone, there were the following major election law developments and press coverage:
Washington State The Washington State Supreme Court issued this unanimous opinion allowing the counting of disputed ballots in King County, leading to the apparent victory of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire over Republican candidate Dino Rossi. More litigation is possible, including a Bush v. Gore issue related to possible different treatment of ballots in different counties. See this Seattle Times report. If this claim is made, I believe it will mark the first time Republicans will have used Bush v. Gore in post-2000 litigation in an attempt to change the outcome of an election. Howard Bashman has collected earlier coverage here. David Kravitz has some interesting observations here.
New York Times on Ohio Election Issues On Friday, the New York Times ran this extensive article, “Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul.”
Interim Report of SSRC Panel Finds No Evidence of Vote Fraud in 2004 Presidential Election You can find the report here and the press release here.
Will California Democrats Try to Use Schwarzenegger’s Ballot Measure Tactics Against Him? On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times offered this front-page article, “Ballot Measures Aimed at Gov.; Liberals and Democratic lawmakers talk of beating Schwarzenegger at his own game by putting measures he has blocked before voters.”
Puerto Rico case to the Supreme Court? Howard Bashman reports that the First Circuit has denied rehearing en banc in one of the Puerto Rico elections cases.
Cert petition in Fourth Circuit Voting Rights Act claim Plaintiffs have filed a cert. petition in Hall v. Virginia, a Fourth Circuit case raising an important question about coalitional districts. Ed Still has posted it here.
Merger The Alliance for Better Campaigns is merging with the Campaign Legal Center. See this press release.
Campaign Finance from the Washington Post The newspaper offers Tribal Money Linked to GOP Fundraising and College Republicans’ Fundraising Criticized.