Most state legislatures have adjourned for the year. Three states in which the legislative process is not over, and which must deal with important election law issues, are New York, North Carolina, and California.
In New York, legislative and congressional redistricting is still not resolved. This Daily News editorial explains the current situation.
In North Carolina, the special session convenes soon and election law bills are on the agenda, including the ballot access reform bill, HB 32. Also pending is the omnibus election law bill, which includes a provision eliminating the straight-ticket device.
In California, many bills are part of the way through the legislature: the National Popular Vote Plan bill; a bill to count write-in votes when the voter forgets to fill in the square next to the name written in; a bill to move the presidential primary from February to June; a bill to provide for on-line voter registration; three bills to force petitioners to wear badges (but only if they are circulating initiative, referendum or recall petitions); a bill to outlaw paying circulators on a per-signature basis; and a bill to outlaw paying voter registration workers on a per-registration basis.
Here in New York it’s time we set up our own “Independent Redistricting Commission” and work up one, two, or three alternative plans for state legislative and congressional districts. By we I mean all EXCEPT the Dems and Reps who are involved in the process that began last Wednesday in the State Capitol. How about it, New York reformers and minor party types, can we do this ourselves?
Isn’t the California write-in counting bill moot, since the “top two” system virtually eliminates write-in votes except for President?
#2: The write-in counting bill still has lots of relevance in California, because local, nominally non-partisan elections were unaffected by Prop 14 and SB 6 that created the “top two” system. One of the more notable cases where the bill would have made a difference was the 2004 San Diego mayoral election, which falls in that category.
GEE – NO bills to have REAL Democracy via
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
The EVIL gerrymander oligarchy regimes continue — to a CRISIS — likely economic.
See 1773-1775 and 1859-1861.
Will the SCOTUS robot party hacks stop/cause Civil WAR II ??? Stay tuned.
We need to get online voter registration happening. The infrastructure is already there and it makes it so easy. Just send people to http://registertovote.org or something and let them register there. Itll make a lot of peoples lives easier.
#2 write-in votes are permitted in the primary in Top 2 races. There was a write-in candidate in the special primary for CD-38. In fact, California treats them more liberally than Washington or Louisiana.
In Washington, a write-in candidate has to get a certain percentage of the vote to advance to the general election ballot. Write-in votes are not allowed in Louisiana at all.
If there were a primary with an unopposed candidate, then a write-in candidate could easily qualify for the general election ballot.
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OMG! California sent NPV to Brown.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!