Canada Election Will be October 21; Candidates Must File by September 30

Posted on by September 11, 2019
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On September 11, Canada’s government announced a parliamentary election for Monday, October 21. Candidates qualify for the ballot by submitting 100 signatures and paying a filing fee of $1,000, which is returned if the candidate polls a certain share of the vote. The deadline for the petition and the filing fee is September 30.

Contrast that schedule with U.S. elections, in which new parties in a few states must qualify for the ballot almost a full year before the election. Also there are states in which candidates must file a declaration of candidacy as much as eleven months before the election.

UPDATE: here is an article about the Green Party and its hopes to elect at least four members of the House of Commons.

California Senate Passes Bill Letting Voters Change their Party at the Polls on Primary Day

Posted on by September 11, 2019
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On September 10, the California Senate passed AB 681. It lets voters change their party at the polls on primary day, without having to fill out an entire new registration form. It also requires election officials to send two notices to independent voters several months before a presidential primary, letting voters know that they are registered independents, and warning them that certain parties may not necessarily let them vote in its presidential primary. The notice also includes a form that can be returned, letting the voter register differently.

The bill has an urgency clause. It must return to the Assembly for concurrence in Senate amendments.

California Senate Passes Bill to Make it More Difficult to Qualify Statewide Initiatives

Posted on by September 11, 2019
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On September 10, the California State Senate passed AB 1451 by 24-12. It makes it more difficult to qualify statewide initiatives. It requires that at least 10% of the signatures must be collected by unpaid individuals. It also makes it illegal to pay circulators on a per-signature basis. The bill must still pass the Assembly again because the versions in each house differ slightly.

California Assembly Passes Bill to Force American Independent Party to Change its Name by October 2019

Posted on by September 11, 2019
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On September 10, the California Assembly passed SB 696 by 64-14. All of the “No” votes were cast by Republicans. The bill requires the American Independent Party to change its name by October 29, or it will be disqualified from the ballot.

No state has ever before forced a ballot-qualified party to change its name. The bill is ambiguous as to whether “Independence” could be part of a party name. The bill bans the word “Independent” as part of a party name, and also says the ban applies to any derivative of the word “Independent.” Supporters of the bill say the intent is to also ban “Independence”.

At one time in the past, 47 states have had a ballot-qualified party with either “Independent” or “Independence” as part of its name, or all of its name. One of the most significant of such parties was the Independence Party, formed by William Randolph Hearst in 1906, which ran Congressman Thomas Hisgen for president in 1908.

If this bill becomes law and is not held unconstitutional, there will no longer be any excuse for California to bar independent candidates for Congress and partisan state office from having “independent” as their ballot label. When the ban on the word “independent” was challenged in court in Chamness v Bowen, the state’s defense was that if it allowed independent candidates to be “independent” on the ballot, that would cause confusion with the American Independent Party.