HR 1, which is pending in the U.S. House, and which has many election law provisions, is sponsored by virtually every Democratic member of the House. But the ACLU opposes the bill because of many changes it makes to campaign finance. See the ACLU letter here. Thanks to the Institute for Free Speech for the link.
The ACLU letter does not mention the part of HR 1 that makes it far more difficult for candidates to qualify for primary season matching funds.
Florida Senator Jose Rodriguez and two other Senators have introduced SB 1386. Among other things, it provides that the Secretary of State will prepare a statewide layout for ballots. Currently each county designs its own ballot layout.
In November 2018, Broward County’s ballot put U.S. Senator and U.S. House at the bottom of the left-most column, underneath a large area that contained voting instructions. Then, at the top of the middle column, were the gubernatorial candidates, followed by less important offices. Thousands of Broward County voters didn’t see the U.S. Senate and U.S. House races that were at the bottom of the first column. Their eyes glazed over the first column, so they never noticed they were not voting for the congressional races.
If the bill is signed into law, the Secretary of State’s layout will be used in all counties. Presumably the Secretary of State’s office will pay better attention to good design than Broward County did in 2018.
Rhode Island held a special election on March 5, to fill the vacancy in the 68th Representative district. There were four candidates on the ballot, a Democrat, a Libertarian, and two independents. The Libertarian, William Hunt Jr., placed second with 28.4%. The Democratic nominee won the seat with 39.8%. The State Board of Elections still doesn’t have these election returns on its web page, but this story has the votes, if one reads all the way down and looks at the picture of the vote totals on the blackboard. Also see this Ballotpedia page.
When this same seat was up in November 2018, Hunt had polled 35.6%, but that was a two-person race. Thanks to Bob Johnston for this news.
The Idaho Senate State Affairs Committee has introduced SB 1159. It makes it far more difficult to qualify a statewide initiative.
The bill shrinks the petitioning period from 18 months to six months. It increases the number of signatures from 6% of the registered voters to 10% of the registered voters. It requires signatures (equal to 10%) in each of 32 of the 35 legislative districts; currently signatures are required from 18 of the legislative districts.
It says that petition sheets must not contain signatures of voters from different legislative districts. It says that if the initiative proposes an idea that costs taxpayer dollars, the initiative must include a method for the increased costs to be raised.
The Idaho Constitutional provision on the initiative does not say how many signatures are needed for an initiative, so the legislature is free to raise or lower the number. Almost all other states with the initiative have constitutional provisions setting for the number of signatures.
This bill is being introduced because many state legislators are upset with an initiative that passed in 2018, expanding eligibility to medicaid. It passed with over 60% of the vote. Between 2013 and 2017, no statewide initiatives qualified. The 2018 measure, which needed 56,192 valid signatures, was collected entirely by volunteers. Thanks to Robert Reed for this news. UPDATE: see this news story.
On March 5, the Alabama Libertarian Party filed this 17-page brief in Libertarian Party of Alabama v Merrill, m.d., 2:19cv-69. This is the case that challenges the law that says that qualified parties get a free list of the registered voters, but unqualified parties must pay for it.
