The Idaho House Affairs Committee has introduced HB 638, which would restore presidential primaries. Any qualified party would be entitled to a presidential primary, which would be held the first Tuesday in March. However, the filing fee for candidates would be $50,000. The bill contains no provision for a petition in lieu of filing fee. That omission would probably be unconstitutional. In 1972 a 3-judge federal court in Vermont ruled that there must be some alternative to filing fees for presidential candidates who can’t afford the fee.

Pennsylvania’s law requiring postal voters to add the date to the outer envelope is still generating judicial activity. On February 11 the Republican National Committee filed a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on this issue. The Third Circuit had struck down the requirement on the basis of the 1964 Civil Rights Law, which says that paperwork errors in the voting process that are not material to determining whether the voter is eligible cannot be used to invalidate a ballot. That cert petition is Republican National Committee v Eakin, 25-962.

Six days later the state government of Pennsylvania filed its own cert petition, even though the state and the Republican National Committee are on the same side. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v Eakin, 25-967.

I, fortunately, have never had to deal with harassment like this when I have been out petitioning, but I have heard about it. Here is a story from Democracy Docket about what volunteer petitioners in Missouri are facing when circulating a referendum trying to stop GOP congressional redistricting in Missouri.