Four bills have been introduced in the Arizona legislature, all of which would have the effect of moving the petition deadlines for new parties, or non-presidential independent candidates, earlier in the year.

SB 1154 would move the primary from the tenth Tuesday before the general election (late August) to the first Tuesday in August. That would move the petition for a newly-qualifying party from late February to early February, and it would move the petition deadline for non-presidential independents from late May to early May.

HB 2050 would move the primary to the 17th Tuesday before the general election. That would move the new party petition deadline to mid-January, and the non-presidential independent deadline to mid-April.

HB 2911 would move the primary to the 19th Tuesday before the general election. That would move the new party deadline to early January, and the non-presidential independent deadline to early April.

HB 2127 would move the deadline for candidates to file for the primary from 90 days before the primary, to 120 days before the primary. That would not affect the new party petition deadline, but would move the non-presidential independent deadline so it would be a month earlier.

There is no rational reason to set the new party petition deadline six months before the primary, but that is what the current law does, so every time the primary becomes earlier, the new party petition deadline becomes earlier.

None of these bills would affect the presidential independent petition deadline, which is not tied to the primary date.

On January 30, the Washington State Senate passed SB 5273. It moves the date of the presidential primary from the fourth Tuesday in May to the second Tuesday in March.

Washington does not have registration by party. The bill says that when a voter asks for a particular party’s presidential primary ballot, that voter must sign a statement of membership in that party. The record of which voters choose which party’s primary vote will be public. Thanks to FrontloadingHQ for this news.

Nine Hawaii State Senators are sponsoring SB 954, to provide for a top-two system. The bill is badly worded. It says that it applies to all elective office, which implies that it includes president. Yet Hawaii doesn’t have a presidential primary, and the bill doesn’t provide for a presidential primary.

Also, the bill does not redefine “political party”. Existing law defines parties in terms of the vote for their nominees. Because there are no party nominees in a top-two system, none of the state’s political parties would be able to meet the vote test, because no party would have any nominees.

Also, the bill’s sponsors don’t understand that top-two systems are unconstitutional unless the ballot language on party labels has wording to tell voters that the party name doesn’t mean the candidate is a party nominee. That is why the California and Washington ballots put “prefers” or “party preference: (whatever)” on the ballot next to the name of each candidate.