On March 19, the Arizona House Elections Committee passed SB 1154 by 6-4. This is the bill that moves the non-presidential primary from late August to early August. It also moves the petition for a newly-qualifying party from February of the election year to November of the year before the election.
On March 19, the Arkansas House passed SB 445, which moves all primaries in presidential years from May to March. It also moves the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties from January of the election year, to October of the year before the election. The vote was 74-8
On March 19, the California Senate Elections Committee passed SB 27. This is the bill to require presidential candidates in primaries to reveal the last five years of their income tax returns. It does not apply to write-in candidates, and California permits write-ins in presidential primaries. The vote was 3-1.
On March 18, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a racial gerrymandering case involving Virginia legislative districts. Virginia House of Delegates v Bethune-Hill. The plaintiffs had won in the lower court. Here is the New York Times story about the hearing, which seemed to be almost as much about who in state government can decide whether to appeal, than on the merits itself.
The two partisan gerrymander cases in the U.S. Supreme Court are next week.
On March 14, the Georgia legislature passed HB 316, which retains the existing touchscreen vote-counting machines, but which adds printers to each machine, to print out each voter’s choices. The voter is expected to look at his or her printed copy and check that it accurately reflects what the voter did on the touch-screen. Then the voter deposits the paper ballot in a scanner.
In case there is a dispute that the touchscreen machines performed accurately, the paper ballots are then available to check against the touchscreen results.
HB 316 was controversial, because many legislators opposed this idea and wanted to dispense with touchscreen machines, and simply have the voter mark a paper ballot that could then be read electronically. That system is far more common around the nation. The vote in the House was 101-69. In the Senate, it was 35-21.
The bill also changes various procedures for registration purges, and makes other changes. See this story.
