The South Dakota Senate Local Government Committee will hear HB 1018 on Friday, February 22, at 7:45 a.m. This is the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill, and it has already passed the House. Among other things, it would let a ballot-qualified party cease to be ballot-qualified if the state chair of the party wishes. This provision has been included in the bill to give Americans Elect a chance to avoid being on the ballot in 2014.
Would this bill just be for Americans Elect or would it apply to all ballot qualified parties? I can see some mischief (or worse) coming from this.
The bill technically applies to all ballot-qualified parties, even the Dem and Rep Parties.
Reason enough to get rid of party nominations, and have presidential elections by electoral district.
An elector candidate would simply gather a modest number of signatures (perhaps 40, as in California). When a candidate files, he may, with their permission, include the names of the presidential and vice-presidential candidate he intends to vote for. So on the ballot it would look like:
Patty Partyhack elector for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Freya Agent unpledged elector, etc.
If the Democratic party wants to help Ms.Partyhack’s campaign, they could.
Appointment would be by majority vote. If there were a failure to appoint on election day, the elector candidates for the district would meet on a subsequent day, and choose the elector for the district, with each of the elector candidates vote weighted by the number of votes they received on election day.