On the morning of Tuesday, October 17, the North Carolina House passed SB 656. Because the Senate passed it the day before, it is now law. Governor Roy Cooper had vetoed it, but the legislature has now overridden his veto.
Many Democratic members of the House said in debate on October 17 that they support the ballot access liberalization, but that they voted to uphold the gubernatorial veto because of the unrelated part of the bill that eliminates judicial primary elections in 2018.
As a result of the success of SB 656, there are now only four states without some means for a presidential candidate (running outside the two major parties) to get on the ballot with the support of 25,000 or fewer voters: California, Texas, Michigan, and Indiana. For U.S. House, the only states that ever require petitions in excess of 8,000 signatures are now Georgia and Illinois.
Here is the text of the final draft of SB 656.
Yay, Indiana’s in the top four. Happy to know we’ll always stand out when it comes to bad policy. But congrats to North Carolina getting more reasonable ballot access. And while I’m sure the lose of judicial primaries in 2018 will be a negative, I have ti imagine the good overruns the bad.
More racist judicial election area machinations on top of the NC Legislature gerrymander machinations (mainly racist).
I was so glad to hear about this news this morning! It’s been a long time coming and it’s going to be great for NC!
“Yay, Indiana’s in the top four.”
I don’t know about _top_ but you’re certainly in the _final_ four. Go team!
Finally, But this long road for reforming NC election system.
Excellent! Three cheers to the NC legislature! However, when it comes to the list of states which require in excess of 25,000 signatures in order to get on the ballot for President, Illinois also has that problem. The requirement on paper is 25,000 signatures, but in practice it’s 40,000-50,000 or so in order to survive the likely challenge to one’s petitions.
Simple laws can be quickly changed by the gerrymander oligarchs.
Main ballot access stuff (nominating petitions/fees) must be in constitutions — the same as for office qualifications and terms, etc.
California should switch to Top 2 for presidential electors chosen by congressional district or pairs of SBOE districts. Elector candidates could indicate whether they endorsed a presidential candidate rather than a party preference. That would reduce the requirement for a statewide slate to 2200, albeit with a distribution requirement.