On May 21, the Nevada Senate passed AB 186, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. The vote was 12-8. The bill now goes to Governor Steve Sisolak, who is a Democrat.
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On May 21, the full panel of U.S. Court of Appeals judges in the D.C. Circuit issued an opinion in Libertarian National Committee v Federal Election Commission, 18-5227. Seven of the judges upheld the FEC and ruled that someone who is dead, and who had never told the party that he was leaving them a bequest, still can’t have his bequest given to the party, except by allowing a limited amount of the money to be doled out every year. UPDATE: see this new story.
Three judges dissented. The majority opinion is 35 pages; one of the dissents, by Judge Thomas Griffith, is 9 pages; the other dissent, by Judges Gregory Katsas and Karen Henderson, is 22 pages. All of the dissenters are appointees of Republican presidents. All of the judges in the majority are appointees of Democratic presidents. Judge Neomi Rao, who is new to the court, did not participate.
The majority opinion says the Libertarian Party does have standing to have brought this case. Otherwise, the majority opinion seems strangely detached from real-world events.
This seems as though it might be a case the U.S. Supreme Court would review. Thanks to Rick Hasen and Thomas Jones for this news.
Georgia is one of five states that uses vote-counting machines with no paper trail. On May 21, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg issued a 61-page opinion in Curling v Raffensperger, clearing the way for a trial on whether the Georgia machines violate the U.S. Constitution because they may not guarantee an accurate vote count.
Footnote 38 of the opinion acknowledges that the Georgia law was changed last month to require a new type of vote-counting machine that has an audit trail. But the state has not yet chosen a new type of machine, and elections later in 2019 will be using the old machines. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Late on the evening of May 20, the Texas Senate passed HB 2504, the bill that makes it easier for a party to stay on the ballot, but which requires the nominees of convention parties to pay filing fees. The bill is now through the legislature.
Alabama Senate Bill 336, which would lower the number of signatures for minor parties and non-presidential independent candidates, is pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee. This news story says that an informal straw poll of the Senators on that committee shows that it only has two supporters, out of 13 committee members. But the bill has not had any publicity in Alabama newspapers, until this story.
There is a ballot access lawsuit pending against Alabama petition requirements in special elections. It is in the U.S. Supreme Court. It had won in U.S. District Court, but then the Eleventh Circuit had ruled 2-1 that the case had been moot when it won in U.S. District Court, and the Eleventh Circuit erased the decision without actually deciding the ballot access issue. The issue in the U.S. Supreme Court is whether the Eleventh Circuit was wrong to do that.