On February 11, the Alabama Senate Government Affairs Committee voted not to advance SB 70, the ballot access bill. It would have reduced the party petition from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1.5%. It would also have eased the petition deadline.
The New Mexico legislature adjourned on February 20. The 2020 session did not pass any election law bills.
Bills that failed to pass included a bill to make Secretary of State elections non-partisan; to allow independent voters to vote in party primaries; to move the presidential primary from June to January; and the omnibus election law bill making small changes. Usually those bills pass, but not this year.
Free & Equal is holding a presidential debate on Wednesday, March 4, at the Chicago Hilton, 720 S. Michigan Ave., at 2 p.m.
The debate includes the presidential nominees of four parties: Gloria La Riva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation; Brian Carroll of the American Solidarity Party; Ben Zion of the Transhumanist Party; and John Richard Myers of the Life & Liberty Party.
It includes one independent presidential candidate, Mark Charles.
It includes four candidates who are seeking the nomination of a major political party: Republicans Robert Ardini and Zoltan Istvan, and Democrats Mosie Boyd and Mark Stewart.
It includes two candidates who are seeking the Green nomination: Howie Hawkins and Sedinam Moyowasifza-Curry.
It includes two candidates who are seeking the Constitution nomination: Don Blankenship and Charles Kraut.
Finally, it includes eight Libertarians: Ken Armstrong, Souraya Faas, Erik Gerhardt, Jo Jorgensen, Adam Kokesh, Sam Robb, Vermin Supreme, and Arvin Vohra.
There will be two proceedings, one which includes eleven candidates; the other includes the other ten candidates.
On February 24, the Senate Rules Committee passed HB 4026. It eases the registration test for a party to remain on the ballot, from one-half of 1% of the state total, to one-fourth of 1% of the state total. The registration test is an alternate test. Parties either need to pass the registration test, or the vote test. The vote test is 1% for any statewide race at either of the last two elections.
The bill had already passed the House. It was requested by the Working Families Party, which generally can’t use the vote test because it usually doesn’t have its own nominees for statewide offices; instead it typically nominates the Democratic nominee. In Oregon, fusion is aggregated, so there is no separate vote for each party when two parties have the same nominee. So the Working Families Party doesn’t get credit for the vote its nominee receives, and therefore the party is dependent on passing the alternate registration test.
Two Democratic voters in Florida have filed a lawsuit in state court, arguing that votes for Bernie Sanders should not be counted in the March 2020 primary because Sanders is not a Democrat. See this story. Thanks to Jeff Becker for the link. The ballots have already been printed or the plaintiffs probably would have argued that his name should be removed.
