The North Carolina omnibus election law bill, SB 47, appears likely not to pass the legislature this month. The House is still in session but is expected to adjourn later on Saturday, June 18. SB 47 has passed the Senate. Although the regular session of the legislature is almost over, a special session in July could pass the bill.
SB 47 has many controversial provisions. It restores partisan elections for state judicial elections. It eliminates the ability of people who will be age 18 at the time of the general election to also vote in that year’s primary, even though that person might not yet be 18 at the time of the primary. It eliminates the straight-ticket device. It adds a requirement that parties, and independent presidential candidates, must submit twice as many candidates for presidential elector as the state has votes in the electoral college, so that if one elector votes against the expected presidential candidate, he or she is deemed to have resigned and to be replaced by a back-up (Montana also passed that law this year). It imposes huge penalties on anyone who is nominated for state office who doesn’t file campaign finance reports within 10 days of being nominated; the fine would be $250 per day.
The bill also changes the order of parties on the ballot, in a manner which would probably be held unconstitutional. It says the two parties with the most registered voters should always be first and second on the ballot, and that they are rotated every four years. All other parties would never have the first or second lines. They would have the inferior lines, and they also would rotate, but only with each other. The fact that the bill provides for rotation is an admission that being first on the ballot is advantageous. There is no constitutional theory that supports always putting the two old, major parties in the best spots on the ballot at all times. Generally, when there is evidence that the top spot on the ballot is advantageous, courts strike down discriminatory laws on the order of parties and candidates on the ballot.
Here is a newspaper editorial about SB 47, saying the only worthwhile part of the bill is the part that abolishes the straight-ticket device.
This bill deserves to fail if for no other reason than its broad scale. It’s provisions minus a few are bad for elections.
“omnibus” = like processed food – you never really know what’s in it and if you are foolish enough to ingest it, you vomit. Each of these issues should have been dealt with in their own bill.
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I received this e-mail from Free the Vote North Carolina on June 16 about the situation:
Electoral Freedom Act Alive and Well for Upcoming Special Session
#4, thank you very much. That is good information.
#5, you are quite welcome.
RE the straight ticket stuff —
How many functional illiterate folks try to register and vote in the U.S.A. ???
See the many foreign regime ballots with party symbols and even photos of candidates on the ballots
— i.e. a chance for Democracy even for foreign illiterate folks.
NOT so in the U.S.A. ??? Duh.
How many *omnibus* election laws since Bush v. Gore in 2000 ???
How many election law changes needed to make a bill be omnibus ??? 2 ???
Where is that missing- in- action Model Election Law ??? — especially for party hack robots in State legislatures.
After World War I many of the state regimes wrote one GIANT election law combining all the election laws accumulated since 1776.
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