With great fanfare, a bill to reform many New York election laws was introduced on February 9 by Assemblymember Michael Cusick and nine others. Here is the text of A 5312.

The bill makes many improvements to New York election procedures. Unfortunately it moves the independent petition deadline from August to May. There is absolutely no reason to change this petition deadline. If the bill is enacted as written, New York would have the nation’s earliest petition deadline for presidential candidates of any state. May and June deadlines for presidential petitions have been declared unconstitutional in these cases:

Alaska: June too early. Sykes v McAlpine, 1990, Superior Court, 3AN-88-8695, not reported
Arizona: June too early. Nader v Brewer, 531 F.3d 1028 (Ninth Circuit 2008)
Idaho: May too early. Populist Party v Evans, 1984, Ninth Circuit, 84-4108, not reported
Kansas: June too early. Merritt v Graves I, 1988, U.S. Dist. Ct., 87-4264, not reported
Massachusetts: May too early. Serrette v Connolly, 1985, Superior Court, 68172 Suffolk, not reported
Nevada: June too early. Fulani v Lau, 1992, U.S. Dist. Ct., cv-N-92-535, not reported
South Dakota: June too early. Nader v Hazeltine, 110 F.Supp.2d 1201 (2000)

The bill moves the primary for all non-presidential office to the fourth Tuesday in June. The deadline moves from the 11th week before the general election to the 22nd week before the election, which would range from May 25 to May 31, depending on the calendar. The authors of the bill seem to feel that the independent petition deadline should be at least a month before the primary, but the policy of setting independent candidate deadlines several weeks before the primary was held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Anderson v Celebrezze in 1983, and in two U.S. Supreme Court summary affirmances, Lendall v Jernigan in 1977, and and Salera v Tucker in 1976.

The good features of this comprehensive bill set up no-excuse absentee voting, same-day registration, freedom for individuals on parole to register to vote, more time for voters to switch parties before a primary, and ease voter registration procedures in general.

On February 8, Tennessee Representative Bud Hulsey (R-Kingsport) introduced HB 662. It lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote (now 33,816 signatures) to exactly 5,000. It also lowers the vote test from 5% for any statewide race at the last election, to 1.5% at any of the last three elections. Here is the text. Thanks to Jim Tomasic for this news.

On January 27, the Virginia House Privileges & Elections Committee tabled HB 1425 by a voice vote. It had passed a subcommittee a few days earlier. It would have provided that each U.S. House district elect its own presidential elector.