Supremes Won't Hear Mississippi Case

From Ballot Access News:

On May 17, the U.S. Supreme Court said it won’t hear the Mississippi ballot access case, Moore v. Hosemann, 09-982.

The original issue in the Mississippi case was whether Brian Moore, Socialist Party presidential candidate, should have been on the November 2008 ballot.[1] His presidential elector paperwork had been submitted ten minutes past 5 p. m. The chances of this case being heard in the U. S. Supreme Court were probably diminished when the Mississippi legislature this year passed a bill, saying such paperwork is due at 5 p. m. (previously, the law set a date for the deadline, but not a time).

The U. S. Supreme Court has said that ballot access lawsuits are not moot just because the election is over. But this case had a different type of mootness problem. This year, after Moore had filed his brief with the U. S. Supreme Court, the legislature had fixed the law that had been complained about. The Court has never... taken any election law case in which the legislature has already fixed the problem complained about while the case was pending.

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[1] The Socialist Party is not ballot-qualified in Mississippi, so Moore, a Florida resident, was nominated here by the Natural Law Party. That was easier for him than qualifying for the Magnolia State's ballot as an independent.