On March 25, Utah Governor Gary Herbert vetoed SB 123, a bill to set out procedures for special U.S. House elections. He vetoed it because it provided no means for candidates in special elections to get on the special primary ballot unless they did well at a party endorsements convention. On April 30 legislative leaders let it be known that they will not try to override the veto.

Utah had never had a special U.S. House election until 2017, and then it was noticed that the election code had no rules for such elections. As a result of the veto, that is still the case.

Current Colorado election law does not permit anyone to get on a presidential primary ballot unless that candidate has qualified for primary season matching funds. But, a portion of the omnibus election law bill, HB 19-1278, now pending in the House, would delete that requirement. The bill has already passed the State Senate.

Assuming that part of the bill is signed into law, presidential primary candidates would merely need to pay $500, or submit 5,000 signatures. Only parties that polled 20% of the vote in the last presidential election may have presidential primaries in Colorado. These days, virtually no Democratic or Republican presidential candidate files for primary season matching funds. Individuals who qualify for primary season matching funds are handicapped by strict expenditure limits within each of the various states, so presidential candidates avoid qualifying.

Colorado didn’t have presidential primaries in 2016. The 2017 law that drew up the rules for presidential primary ballot access included the primary season matching fund provision, but now legislators are aware of how impractical that idea is.

On April 26, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed SB 5074. It requires all presidential electors to have signed a pledge, promising to vote in the electoral college for the candidate who received the most popular votes in the state. It is odd that the legislature passed this bill before the Washington State Supreme Court issues an opinion in Guerra v Washington State Office of Administrative Hearings, 95347-3. That is the lawsuit over the old law, which fines “faithless” presidential electors $1,000 if they don’t vote for the expected presidential candidate. The opinion could come out at any time.