On January 12, a bill was introduced in the Washington legislature to let cities and counties use ranked choice voting for their own officers. The bill, HB 1156, has 27 sponsors. Here is the text.
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On January 13, J. Edward Hollington, an independent candidate for the upcoming special U.S. House election in New Mexico, filed a lawsuit in state court against the short time period allowed for him to collect the needed 6,426 signatures. Hollington v Toulouse Oliver, Bernalillo Co., 2nd jud. dist., D-202-cv-2021-00252. The lawsuit also challenges the number of signatures. The time period is now unknown, but will be between 21 and 35 days.
The seat will soon be empty because Congressmember Deb Haaland will soon resign to become Secretary of the Interior.
There are favorable precedents from Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Montana, and Utah, that in special elections, when the petitioning period is much shorter than usual, the ballot access petition requirements must be eased.
Wisconsin holds a special state senate election on April 6, to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 13th district. The vacancy exists because the previous State Senator, Scott Fitzgerald, resigned to take a seat in Congress.
The American Solidarity Party has petitioned to place its nominee on the ballot. He is Ben Schmitz. He will face the Republican and Democratic nominees (who will be determined in February primaries), and an independent candidate, Spencer Zimmerman, whose ballot label will be “Trump Conservative.” Thanks to Independent Political Report for this news.
Schmitz needed 400 signatures to get on the ballot. He is the second American Solidarity Party nominee for a state legislative office to appear on a ballot with the party label. The first was Monica Sohler, who ran in 2017 for New Jersey’s legislature, Assembly District 6.
Congressmember John Sarbanes (D-Maryland) has introduced HR 1, “For the People Act of 2021”. It alters many federal election laws. It makes it more difficult for a presidential candidate seeking the nomination of a party to receive primary season matching funds. Current law requires private contributions of $5,000 from each of twenty states. The bill increases that to $25,000 from each of twenty states. Thanks to Mike Feinstein for this news.
Minor party presidential candidates have frequently qualified for primary season matching funds, and have been permitted by the Federal Election Commission to use such funds on ballot access drives. Minor party presidential candidates who received such funds were from these parties: Citizens, New Alliance, Green, Reform, Natural Law, and Libertarian (in 2012).
The change is in section 5202 of the bill. Scroll down about three-fourths of the way.
The New York Libertarian Party, and the New York Green Party, have filed this brief in Libertarian Party of New York v New York State Board of Elections, s.d., 1:20cv-5820. This is the case over the ballot access law passed on April 1, 2020, that tripled the number of signatures for statewide independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties; and also more than tripled the number of votes needed for a party to be ballot-qualified.
The state has not yet responded, but it will soon.