On April 28, a state trial court ruled that the recount of the Maricopa County, Arizona presidential vote must be conducted without secrecy. The case had been filed by the Arizona Democratic Party. See this story.
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On April 27, the Minnesota Senate amended the State Government Omnibus bill, SF 1831/HF 1952, to add an amendment banning local governments from using ranked choice voting. Thanks to Fairvote Minnesota for this news.
The Minnesota Senate has a Republican majority. The Minnesota House has a Democratic majority. The bill will pass, but the House will appoint conference committee members who will try to delete the amendment.
On April 27, U.S. District Court Judge Jill A. Otake, a Trump appointee, issued an opinion in Reeves v Nago, 1:20cv-433. This is a voting rights case filed by a U.S. citizen who formerly lived in Hawaii, but then moved to Guam. When he moved, he lost his ability to vote in federal elections. If he had moved to a foreign country, he could have continued to vote absentee in Hawaii elections.
The judge said she lacks the authority to issue relief. Here is the 22-page opinion. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
The California Assembly Elections Committee will hear AB 446 on Thursday, April 29, in a meeting that starts at 10:30 a.m. The bill makes slight improvements to the process of qualifying a new party. It cuts the number of signatures for the party petition from 10% of the last gubernatorial vote to 3%.
The petition method for qualifying a new party in California is almost entirely unused. It is not mandatory, because a new party can also qualify by persuading .33% of the number of registered voters to join the party, and that is the method almost always used. So the party petition is just a back-up method. Even if the bill is signed into law, the 3% party petition would still be tied for the most difficult such petition in the nation, except that Minnesota and Rhode Island have a party petition of 5% of the last vote cast. Like the California party petition, the Minnesota and Rhode Island party petitions are also not mandatory; there are easier methods to create a new party in Minnesota and Rhode Island.
California AB 446 also gives a new party the freedom to use the name of an old, no longer existing party. The existing law says a party that expects to qualify by registration must file a statement of intent. The Secretary of State’s office has been interpreting that law to mean that if a group files the statement of intent (and many groups do), no future party can ever use the same name. The bill relaxes that rule, and says a name can be re-used after two years have gone by and the old name has not been used successfully. For example, if the bill is signed into law, a new party called the Reform Party could come into existence in California.
On April 26, the U.S. Census Bureau announced the number of U.S. House seats that each state will have in the coming five elections.
Texas gained two seats.
These states each gained one: Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon
These states each lost one: California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia.
It is somewhat surprising that Rhode Island kept both its seats. Some had predicted that it would lose one of them.