The Utah legislature adjourned for the year in the middle of the night, without passing the bill to end straight-ticket voting. Although it had passed the House, the Senate did not vote on it.
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On March 14, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed SB 5273. It moves the presidential primary from May to March. It also says voters who choose a presidential primary ballot must sign in, so that the party whose ballot is chosen will obtain a list of the voters who chose its ballot.
On March 14, the Utah legislature passed SB 242, which sets the presidential primary in March. Utah already had a law for a presidential primary, but the old law didn’t set the date.
On March 14, the Utah legislature passed SB 123. It governs how parties nominate in special U.S. House elections. The bill says party meetings would choose the two highest vote-getters, and then a special primary would be held between those two candidates. There would be no ability for anyone to get the party nomination if that individual had not done well at a party meeting.
The existing code is vague about how parties nominate in special U.S. House elections.
The bill also says that if there is a U.S. Senate vacancy, the legislature, not the Governor, would appoint the new Senator. This appears to violate the 17th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is conceivable that the Governor will veto this bill.
These Oklahoma election law bills are dead for this session, because they didn’t advance by various deadlines:
1. SB 51 and HB 1919, which would have abolished the straight-ticket device.
2. HB 2338, which would have moved the deadline for candidates to file for the primary from April to January.
3. HB 2525, which would have reduced candidate filing fees.