On September 10, the California Senate passed AB 1461 by 25-15. Later on the same day, the Assembly passed it. It provides that California adult citizens who obtain a drivers license, or a state ID card, or who renew those, or who file a change of address in connection with those two pieces of ID, will be automatically registered to vote. However if the individual says he or she does not want to be registered to vote, there will be no automatic registration.

Although such individuals will later be asked to make a choice about partisan affiliation, individuals who don’t respond will be registered with a partisan affiliation of “unknown”. Section 2265 says that for purposes of determining whether a party has enough registered voters to qualify, the percentage calculation won’t include the “unknown” voters. The law currently requires a party to have .33% of the total state registration in order to qualify or remain qualified, but when the percentage is calculated, “unknown” voters will be excluded from the denominator.

Early in the morning of September 11, one male Michigan state legislator resigned and one female Michigan state legislator was expelled, due to their having had an affair and then trying to cover it up. See this story. The actions of the legislature occurred between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

On September 9, a Pennsylvania state trial court ruled in favor of Ray Tonkin, who is running for re-election as District Attorney of Pike County. Tonkin is a registered Republican. He lost the race for the Republican nomination in this year’s primary, but he won the Democratic primary on write-in votes at the primary.

Some challengers then tried to remove him from the general election ballot on the grounds that he didn’t pay the $100 filing fee. He had already paid one filing fee when he filed in the Republican primary, but the challengers said that fee can’t cover his Democratic primary win. However, the challengers lost in court. See this story.