On February 6, the Indiana Senate Elections Committee passed SB 418, which lowers the number of signatures for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. The committee heard testimony from representatives of the Constitution Party and the Green Party. No one testified against the bill. The vote was 5-3. The committee has seven Republicans and two Democrats. Two of the “no” votes were from the two Democrats. Thanks to Craig Marolf for this news.
On January 26, the Idaho House passed HB 13. It eliminates an election law that discriminates against incumbents, relative to the time limit for switching parties. Current law says incumbents can’t file to run for re-election if they changed parties during the previous five days. But all other primary candidates may get on the ballot even if they did switch parties during the previous five days.
A federal court enjoined the law last year, in Teton County Republican Central Committee v Hansen, 1:16cv-160. The incumbent sheriff of Teton County, Tony Liford, had switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party on the very day he filed to run for re-election in the 2016 Republican primary, but election officials had kept him off the Republican primary ballot because of his recent party switch. The Republican Party had then filed a lawsuit to overturn the restriction, and the judge restored Liford to the Republican primary ballot. He went on to win the Republican nomination and also he won the general election.
On January 27, the Arkansas Senate defeated SB 122, which would have moved the presidential primary and primaries for all other office from May to March. If the bill had passed, the petition deadlines for non-presidential independents would have moved from March of the election year, to December of the year before the election. The bill got 17 yes votes and 13 no votes, but all bills need 18 votes in the Senate to pass.
On January 30, the bill was brought up again on the Senate floor, but this time it received only 16 yes votes, and 15 no votes. So, again, it narrowly failed.
On February 3, the Florida Secretary of State released a report on the November 2016 election that, among other things, shows that more than 83,000 Florida voters cast a write-in for President for someone who wasn’t a declared presidential write-in candidate. This figure is not part of the Florida Official Canvass of Votes, and there will be no breakdown as to who received these votes. See this story.
It is likely that Evan McMullin received a fair number of those votes. The Florida deadline for filing for write-in status is in July, an absurdly early deadline. McMullin didn’t declare his candidacy until August 2016 so his write-ins could not be tallied. The July deadline is just one of many silly laws that injured McMullin, yet, sadly, he didn’t file any court challenges to any of these laws. Thanks to Michael Drucker for the link.
On February 3, the Utah House Government Operations Committee amended HB 22 to require that circulators for primary candidate petitions must be registered votes, and to ban paying such circulators.
Both parts of the bill violate U.S. Supreme Court precedents. The Court struck down a Colorado law banning payment for circulators in 1988 in Meyer v Grant. The Court struck down another Colorado law requiring circulators to be registered voters in Buckley v American Constitutional Law Foundation in 1999.
