On February 17, fifteen Wyoming legislators introduced SF 97. It would eliminate the ability of a voter to change affiliation on primary day at the polls. Instead any changes in partisan affiliation would need to be made approximately two months before any primary. Here is the bill.
On February 17, U.S. District Court Judge Lee P. Rudofsky, a Trump appointee, rejected the Arkansas lawsuit that dealt with legislative redistricting. Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP v Arkansas Board of Apportionment, e.d., 4:21cv-1239. He determined that only the federal government can bring a lawsuit to enforce section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This was a surprise, because attorneys for the state of Arkansas had not made this argument.
Judge Rudofsky invited the U.S. Justice Department to enter the case, but he said that must be done within five days. He also said that even if the Voting Rights Act can be enforced by private individuals or groups, he would not have struck down the state house district boundaries for the 2022 election, because that election is too close in time. Here is the opinion.
The New Mexico legislative session ended in the middle of the night, February 16-17. The omnibus election law bill that included a provision forcing declared write-in candidates to submit a petition of 1% of the last vote cast failed to pass, due to a filibuster conducted to stop the bill.
See this story. The motivation for the filibuster was not apparently related to the write-in restriction, but to something else in bill.
The bill was originally SB 6, but its contents had been transferred into SB 144. Although the latter bill had passed both houses of the legislature, the House had amended the bill so it needed to pass the Senate again, but it did not.
The New York Libertarian Party will attempt to collect 45,000 signatures for its gubernatorial nominee, Larry Sharpe, this year. The New York Green Party will attempt to collect 45,000 signatures for its gubernatorial nominee, Howie Hawkins, this year. Both parties are in court fighting that new petition requirement; the case is pending in the Second Circuit.
The petitioning period is only six weeks, and starts in early April. New York is the only state that bans out-of-state circulators for general election candidate petitions. It is possible one or both campaigns might challenge that restriction. It was struck down on May 18, 2018, but then when the state appealed, the Second Circuit said the case is moot because the plaintiff Libertarian Party in November 2018 had become ballot-qualified and didn’t need to petition any more. That case was Free Libertarian Party v Spano, e.d.
On February 17, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that Nick Kristof doesn’t meet the residency requirement to be eligible for Governor. See this story. State ex rel Kristof v Fagan, S069165. Here is the opinion.
