The South Dakota Senate State Affairs Committee has introduced SB 33. It is mostly a clean-up bill, but it makes some changes for independent presidential candidates. It changes the formula for the number of signatures from 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, to one-half of 1% of the number of registered voters as of December of the year before the election.

If this bill had been in effect in 2024, the number of signatures would have been 3,130 instead of 3,502.

Also the bill sets forth procedures for an independent presidential candidate to replace the vice-presidential running mate.

Two bills have been introduced in the Indiana legislature to abolish the straight-ticket device. They are HB 1218 by Representative Ed Clere (R-New Albany) and HB 1133 by Representative Cory Criswell (R-Middletown).

Also there is a bill to expand the existing straight-ticket device to include local at-large partisan elections, and school board elections. Those offices are currently not included in the device, which leads to confusion. That bill is HB 1377 by Representative Zach Payne (R-Charlestown).

On January 22, U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney, an Obama appointee, issued an opinion in King v O’Bannon, e.d., 3:23cv-408. He ruled that Virginia cannot continue to bar many felons from registering to vote. The basis for the decision is the 1870 act of Congress that readmitted Virginia to the union. The 1870 law said that Virginia was readmitted as a state, only if it promised not to limit voting, except that the bill said Virginia could continue to disenfranchise persons who had committed a felony “at common law.”

Since then, Virginia has barred all persons who committed a felony from registering to vote. The list of “felonies at common law” back in 1870 only included about a dozen crimes. Of course, nowadays there are many more felonies.

The plaintiffs are voters who had been disenfranchised because they violated certain drug laws, laws which did not exist in 1870. Therefore, they and similar members of a class may now register to vote. It is not known if the state will appeal. See this news story.