On May 26, the California Secretary of State filed this brief in Koller v Brown, n.d., 5:16cv-7069. This is the lawsuit over the law that tells presidential electors that they must vote for the presidential candidate who got the most popular votes in the state.
The brief tries to persuade the court that the case is moot, and says little about the merits of the case.
On May 29, the British Columbia Green Party announced that it will work with New Democratic Party legislators to organize the provincial legislature. See this story. No party has a majority, so it was up to the Greens to decide whether to choose the NDP or the Liberal Party.
On Wednesday, May 31, the two governing parties will announce what they have decided about electoral reform.
On May 29, Memorial Day, the Illinois House unanimously passed SB 1933. It had passed the Senate on May 5. It provides that adult citizens known by the state government to exist will automatically be registered to vote, unless they opt out. The Senate vote had also been unanimous. The bill still isn’t through the legislative process, because the Senate needs to vote on whether to approve a House amendment. That will probably happen on May 30.
Because the Illinois voter registration form doesn’t ask applicants to choose a party, Illinois does not have the problem of asking these new registrants about their choice of party.
Assuming the bill is signed into law, after a few years the effect will probably be to make it more likely that a petition signature will be considered valid. A larger proportion of signers (compared to the present day) will be registered voters.
Ballot Access News
May 1, 2017 – Volume 32, Number 12
| This issue was printed on white paper. |
Table of Contents
Justin Levitt, who blogs at Election Law Blog, and who is an expert on redistricting legal issues, here summarizes the seven recent North Carolina redistricting lawsuits. One was recently decided but six others are still pending.
