The Chicago Tribune offers this report (registration required) on a settlement of the Illinois punch card litigation. Readers of this blog will recall that earlier in the litigation, a federal district court held that the use of punch card voting in some parts of Illinois but not others constituted an equal protection violation under Bush v. Gore. That case, Black v. McGuffage, is described on page 9 of the 2003 Election Law casebook supplement.
Of course, what this settlement means is that punch cards will be used in the 2004 presidential election in Illinois, and the settlement would make it difficult for others to later sue to enjoin the use of punch cards in that election.