The Nevada legislature is close to adjournment, and therefore it is meeting on Sunday, May 31. The Assembly convenes at 2 p.m. and is expected to vote on SB 421, which replaces caucuses with presidential primaries. The bill passed the State Senate on May 12 and passed the Assembly Elections Committee on May 28. If it isn’t taken up on Sunday, it must be taken up on Monday, June 1, the legislature’s last day.
As reported earlier, no candidates qualified to have their names on the Flint, Michigan ballot this year for Mayor and City Council. This is because the city clerk erroneously told candidates that the deadline was a week later than the actual deadline. The non-partisan primary is in August and the run-off is in November. No August primary would be held if no candidates qualified. Instead, the Mayor and City Councilmembers in the two districts that are up this year would be chosen by write-in votes in November.
However, bills to allow candidates to be on this year’s ballot are moving through the Michigan legislature. On May 27 the House Elections Committee passed HB 4589 and SB 329, identical bills which say late candidates can be on the ballot when the city misinformed candidates, but only for 2015 elections. The Senate had already passed SB 329. The House Committee amended the bill to specify extra training for city officials.
The state has told local officials not to print any ballots until June 5, to see if the bill passes.
Ballot Access News
May 1, 2015 – Volume 30, Number 12
| This issue was printed on yellow paper. |
Table of Contents
On May 29, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed SB 8, the bill that moves the primary for all office in 2016 from late May to early March, and which moves the petition deadline for new parties to September 2015 and the non-presidential independent deadline to November 2015. The bill also forces new parties to have chosen all their 2016 nominees no later than November 2015. It is possible the Libertarian Party will sue over the deadline for it to have chosen all its nominees.
There has never before been any state that forced new parties to nominate all their nominees for a November even-numbered election an entire year before the election. New parties in Arkansas nominate by convention.
On May 28, the Nevada Assembly Legislative Operations & Elections Committee passed SB 421. It had failed in that committee on May 27. It provides for a February 23, 2016 presidential primary, which would replace the Democratic and Republican caucuses. The primary for other office would continue to be in June. See this story.
