On February 26, the Montana House passed HB 454 by a vote of 53-46. Current law requires qualified parties to choose precinct committee members in a government-administered primary. The bill says parties may continue to do that, but they are also free to appoint such party officers per party rules. Or, they can elect them in primaries they adminster themselves.

Apparently, the purpose of the bill is to moot the lawsuit pending in the Ninth Circuit over the constitutionality of forcing parties to choose party officers in a primary at which any voter is free to participate, whether they are Republicans or members of another party or independents. Thanks to Mike Fellows for this news.

On February 24 the Virginia House Appropriations Committee killed SB 742. That bill would have provided for general election runoffs, for statewide office other than President, when no one got as much as 50% in November. The committee didn’t vote it down; it merely failed to act on the bill by the deadline. It had passed the Senate on February 9.

New York is holding a special election on May 5 to fill the vacancy in the Assembly, 43rd district. In New York special elections, there are no primaries, and party committees choose nominees. On March 1, the Democratic Kings County Committee members who live in the 43rd district nominated Guillermo Philpotts. However, he failed to submit his Certificate of Nomination by the March 2 deadline.

As a result, it is likely that this overwhelmingly Democratic district will have nominees from these parties on the ballot: Republican, Conservative, Working Families, Independence, Green, and a single independent candidate. The candidate of the Independence Party will be Shirley Patterson, who is a Democrat and who had sought the Democratic nomination. The candidate of the Working Families and Green Parties will be Diane Richardson, another Democrat who had tried and failed to get the Democratic nomination. These two are considered the front-runners.

Also running is Menachem Raitport, who has the nomination of the Republican and Conservative Parties, and independent candidate Geoffrey Davis, whose ballot label is “Love Yourself.” The deadline for independent petitions is March 4, so conceivably there could be other independent candidates.

Here is the New York State Board of Elections web page, showing deadlines for this special election. The 43rd district is centered on Crown Heights. In November 2014, the vote for Assembly in this district was: Democratic 13,631; Working Families 1,539; Conservative 654. No Republican ran in 2014. Here is a newspaper story about the race.