Bills have been introduced in each house of the New York legislature to cut the number of signatures for district office, for the 2021 general election only. They are A4686 and S4380. They lower the number of signatures for independent candidates, for 2021 only, for district office. US House drops from 3,500 to 1,750; State Senate from 3,000 to 1,500; and Assembly from 1,500 to 750. It is odd that the bills do not lower the number of signatures for statewide office, which is 45,000 as a result of the 2020 bill that tripled statewide independent petitions.

The sponsors are Assembly member Kenny Burgos (D-Bronx) and Senator John Mannion (D-Syracuse). Thanks to Joe Burns for this news.

Another bill, A4447, would eliminate primary write-ins for 2021 only. It is by Assembly member Emily Gallagher (D-Brooklyn).

As of Sunday morning, February 7, the website of the New York State Board of Elections still doesn’t show any election returns for the 22nd U.S. House district. The candidates are listed with zero votes, and that race is still annotated, “litigation pending.”

On February 3, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Lovell refused to reconsider his earlier ruling in Pierce v Jacobsen, 6:18cv-63. This is the case over Montana’s ban on out-of-state circulators for initiatives. See the eight-page order here. The order begins by again saying that in 2006, some Montana out-of-state circulators were convicted of petitioning fraud. This incident, which was already discussed at great length in the original opinion, has nothing to do with the points raised in the request for rehearing. Presumably the plaintiffs will now ask the Ninth Circuit to reverse the decision. The Ninth Circuit already struck down bans on out-of-state circulators in 2008 in an Arizona case, Nader v Brewer.