On March 29, California Assemblymember Jerry Hill amended one of his election law bills to encompass the National Popular Vote Plan bill for presidential elections. The bill will be co-sponsored by Assemblymember Brian Nestande (R-Palm Desert), caucus chair for the Assembly Republicans. The bill has also been endorsed by several prominent former Republican legislators. The bill is AB 459.
On March 29, the Idaho House passed HB 275, 65-2. It makes many election law changes, including two ballot access improvements. It lowers the number of signatures for an independent presidential candidate from 1% of the last presidential vote (about 6,000 signatures) to exactly 1,000. It also says that out-of-state circulators may circulate an independent presidential candidate petition.
Assuming this bill also passes the Senate, Idaho will have the easiest procedure for an independent presidential candidate that it has ever had. Before 1977 Idaho had no procedure for an independent presidential candidate to get on the ballot. Idaho is one of the states that independent presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy sued, to force them to create procedures for independent presidential candidates. McCarthy won all of these lawsuits. However, most states that he sued reacted by passing procedures that were very difficult. For instance, New Mexico passed a procedure in 1977 requiring independent presidential candidates to submit a petition of 3% of the last vote, whereas at the time minor parties only needed 100 signatures. Texas passed a procedure requiring independent presidential candidates to get approximately 40% more signatures than independent candidates for other statewide office need. Oklahoma passed a procedure requiring an independent presidential candidate to submit a petition of 3% of the last presidential vote, whereas independent candidates for other office didn’t need any signatures. Idaho passed a procedure requiring an independent presidential candidate to submit 1% of the last presidential vote, when other statewide independent candidates only needed 1,000 signatures.
Florida now recognizes the Pirate Party is a ballot-qualified party, with its own primary. This is the first state in which the Pirate Party has qualified for the ballot.
North Dakota is the only state that has no voter registration. North Dakota’s election law says indications of voter support for initiatives and for some candidates depend on how many people live in the state, instead of how many registered voters there are in the state. For example, candidates running in a primary for state legislature need the support of 1% of the population of that district (this covers both petitions to get on a primary ballot, and also the minimum number of votes needed in the primary for the candidate to advance to the November ballot).
Initiative petitions need the signatures of 2% of the state’s population.
Because the 2010 census shows that North Dakota’s population increased 4.7% compared to 2000, all those election law numerical requirements will now rise 4.7%, for the period covering the next ten years. North Dakota’s Secretary of State says the increase applies immediately, even to initiatives that are currently circulating.
The U.S. Supreme Court releases advance information to the public about which cases it has on conference, for any particular conference date. The purpose of the conference is to decide whether to hear various cases. There are now three election law cases which have been through at least one conference, but the Court has neither accepted them nor rejected them, nor even set a new conference date for them.
The case over the special U.S. Senate election in Illinois has been through three conferences, the last of which was March 4. There is still no action by the Court on this case (which is really two cases, Burris v Judge and Quinn v Judge), and the Court hasn’t even set a new conference date.
The case over Dallas vote-counting machines and the Voting Rights Act had a conference on March 18, with no result and no new conference date announced.
Most recently, the Green Party of Connecticut case over discriminatory public funding had a conference on March 25, with no result and no new conference date. Of the three cases, the Connecticut case absense of action is the least puzzling. Another case involving public funding (from Arizona) will get a decision on the merits in the next two or three months, so it is plausible that the Court is holding the Connecticut case for further action when the Arizona decision comes down. But it is difficult to understand why the court has put action on the Illinois special election case, and the Texas vote-counting machine case, into the indefinite future.
On March 28, Michael Chamness asked the 9th circuit to delay ballot printing, in the special election to fill the vacant 36th U.S. House seat, until the U.S. District Court in his case issues an order on whether he should have either “Independent” or “My party preference is the Coffee Party” on the ballot.
Chamness is one of the 18 candidates running in the May 17th election. His lawsuit, Chamness v Bowen, argues that it is unconstitutional for California to give candidates from qualified parties a choice of whether to have either their party preference, or their lack of party preference, printed on the ballot; while at the same time not giving members of unqualified parties any choice of label. They cannot have their party on the ballot; they can’t have “independent” on the ballot; they can only have “no party preference.”
The U.S. District Court held a hearing on March 21. U.S. District Court Judge Otis D. Wright still hasn’t acted, even though he has been made aware that ballot-printing starts on March 30. Here is the filing in the 9th circuit, case no. 11-70882.
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