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Indiana Ballot Access Bill Introduced

Posted on January 11, 2019 by Richard WingerJanuary 11, 2019

Indiana State Senator Greg Walker has again introduced his bill to ease ballot access for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. It is SB 571. It lowers the statewide petition from 2% of the last Secretary of State vote (now 44,934 signatures) to exactly 4,500 signatures. That figure is what candidates need to get themselves on the primary ballot of the major parties, if they are running for President, Governor, or U.S. Senator.

The text of the bill will be available next week. Thanks to Craig Marolf for this news.

No statewide petition in Indiana has succeeded (under the existing 2% law) since 2000. Indiana is one of four states in which Ralph Nader never got on the ballot, even though he placed third in three presidential elections, 2000, 2004, and 2008. The other such states were Georgia, North Carolina, and Oklahoma, all of which have eased their ballot access laws since Nader last ran.

Jill Stein Campaign Wins Court Ruling on Whether, After Examining Wisconsin Voting Software, She is Free to Criticize It

Posted on January 11, 2019 by Richard WingerJanuary 11, 2019

On December 21, 2018, a Wisconsin state trial court issued an opinion in Election Systems & Software v Wisconsin Elections Commission, Dane Co., 18-cv-972. The issue was what the Wisconsin Elections Commission should have agreed to, relative to Jill Stein’s request to examine the ES&S software used to count votes in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is one of the three states in which Stein had requested a recount of the November 2016 presidential vote.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission prepared a contract with the Stein campaign, letting the campaign’s experts examine the software, if they promised not to disclose it. That contract was prepared in March 2018. Then ES&S sued to force the Elections Commission to revise the contract, so that it prohibited Stein’s experts from criticizing the software. But the Court said the Elections Commission is under no obligation to do that.

The court made this analogy: “A nutritionist might be given access to the secret formula for Coca Cola, which is undeniably proprietary information and a trade secret. It would not be an unauthorized use or a disclosure of the trade secret for the nutritionist to say, “After seeing the secret formula, I can tell you that Coca Cola is unhealthy.”

Frontloading HQ Chart Showing When Each State’s Legislature Convenes

Posted on January 10, 2019 by Richard WingerJanuary 10, 2019

Frontloading HQ has this useful chart, showing when each state legislature convenes this year, and also when it is expected to adjourn. Frontloading HQ obtained the information from a chart prepared by the National Conference of State Legislatures, and converted it into a more useful format.

New York Legislative Bills on Election Changes To be Introduced on Monday, January 14

Posted on January 10, 2019 by Richard WingerJanuary 10, 2019

The New York legislature will take up various election law reforms on January 14, Monday, according to this story. So far the bills have not been placed on the legislature’s web page.

Law Professor Analyzes Anti-Gerrymandering Provision of HR 1

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Richard WingerJanuary 9, 2019

Law Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos here analyzes the part of H.R. 1 that requires all states to use nonpartisan methods to draw U.S. House boundaries. H.R. 1 is the bill introduced in the U.S. House and supported generally by Democrats in the House. The text of the bill is still not on the web page for Congress, but it should be shortly.

Stephanopoulos supports the part of the bill concerning gerrymandering, but he has some suggestions to improve the bill.