According to this story, on April 8, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon asked the legislature to quickly legalize electronic signatures for candidate petitions. Minnesota does not have statewide initiatives. Also, candidates seeking a place on a primary ballot don’t need signatures. So this proposal mostly affects ballot access petitions for minor party and independent candidates.
On April 8, some Georgia voters filed a lawsuit to force the state to provide postage-paid return envelopes for postal ballots. Black Voters Matter v Raffensperger. The case depends on the 24th amendment, which forbids “any poll tax or other tax” to vote in a federal election. Here is the Complaint. Black Voters Matter v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:20cv-1489.
The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg, an Obama appointee.
On April 7, proponents of a statewide Illinois initiative, which has already collected a substantial number of signatures, filed a lawsuit asking that the initiative procedure for 2020 be altered, due to the health crisis. The Complaint seeks a cut in the number of signatures by 50%, electronic signature gathering, and an extension of the petition deadline from May 3 to August 3. Morgan v White, n.d., 1:20cv-2189. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Charles Norgle, the same judge who has a case asking for petitioning relief for minor party and independent candidates. Thanks to Sam Cahnman for this news. Here is the Complaint.
Counterpunch has this article about the U.S. District Court decision of March 20, 2020, upholding the ballot access laws that kept the Montana Green Party off the ballot in the November 2018 election. The decision upheld an unequal distribution requirement, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has twice said such unequal distribution requirements violate “one person, one vote”, and even though fifteen lower court decisions have also struck down such unequal distribution requirements.
The Montana Green Party will soon file a notice of appeal in the case, Montana Green Party v Stapleton, 6:18cv-87.
This story in The Fulcrum says the Arizona Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs, says she won’t oppose letting initiative circulators use electronic signatures.
