On March 13, some Florida ex-felons filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the Florida Governor’s arbitrary method for deciding which ex-felons may receive clemency and a restoration of their voting rights violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Here is the Complaint in Hand v Scott, northern district, 4:17cv-128.

As the Complaint says, Governor Rick Scott has utter discretion on whose voting rights to restore, and he can take as long as he wishes to consider clemency. Some of the plaintiffs, who have been out of prison for 30 years, have been blocked from becoming voters because they received traffic tickets since they have been out of prison. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

In the November 2016 election, Onondaga County, New York, tallied all write-in votes, even though no law required election officials to prepare this tally. Here is a newspaper story about the tally. Onondaga County contains Syracuse and is one of New York’s most populous counties.

County election officials observed that more write-in votes are being cast in New York, ever since the state eliminated mechanical “lever” voting machines and switched to paper ballots.

On March 6, the Idaho House passed HB 197, and on March 13, the Senate State Affairs Committee passed it. It changes procedures for special U.S. House elections. The current law was written in 1899 and has never been used, because Idaho has never had a vacancy in its U.S. House delegation. The existing law seems to require a non-partisan special election.

The bill changes that to a normal partisan election, with a special primary followed by a special general election.