On April 4, the Oklahoma Senate made a small but interesting amendment to HB 1615, the bill that moves the non-presidential primary from July to June and also moves the petition deadline for a new party from May 1 to March 1. For 37 years, Oklahoma has required a party that wishes to petition for the ballot to notify the State Elections Board that it is about to start petitioning. The function of this law is to help the state enforce the law that says the petition must be completed within one year.

HB 1615, as passed by the House, says that a party that wants to begin to petition cannot file this notice later than December 31 of the year before the election. However, the Senate amended the bill, to say that the notice may be given as late as February 29 of the election year. Of course, the petition is due the next day, so the consequences of the change are not very great. But it is interesting that there was awareness in the Senate that there are constitutional problems with a law that says it is legally impossible for a party to get on the ballot if it didn’t notify the state during the year before the election.

Because the Senate amended HB 1615, is must return to the House. In theory, the House could amend the bill again, to require a smaller number of signatures for a new party. The bill that was introduced to lower the number of signatures has not made any headway in the Senate, so any relief from the very high number of signatures could most easily be made with an amendment to HB 1615 in the House.