On April 28, the Oklahoma Senate again passed SB 896, the bill that lowers the vote test for a party to remain on the ballot from 10% to 2.5%. The vote was 26-14. The bill had already passed the Senate in March, and then it had passed the House. But the House had amended the effective date, so the bill needed another vote in the Senate to agree to the amendment. Assuming the Governor signs it, the only states that will still have vote tests of 10% are New Jersey and Virginia. Two other states, Alabama and Pennsylvania, have even higher tests. But the other 46 states will be at 5% or less.

All of the “No” votes were Republicans, except that one Democrat, Senator Kevin Matthews, also voted “No.” The bill takes effect November 1, 2016.

In 2012, the Libertarian Party polled over 2.5% for President in New Mexico and Montana, and polled 2.48% in Alaska. It is difficult for any third party to poll as much as 2.5% for President, but not out of the question, especially in 2016, with so much voter discontent for the likely major party nominees. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.

Looking back in history, if the 2.5% had existed in the law instead of the actual vote test (which was 5% 1913-1974 and 10% afterwards), the change would not have made any difference in any election more recent than 1934, when the Socialist Party got 2.66% for Governor. The Reform Party got 10.84% in 1996 and 1.21% in 1998. The American Party got 2.30% for President in 1972, and 20.32% in 1968. The change would also have made a difference in 1924, when the Progressive Party got 7.79%.

Nick Baumann has this interesting story on Huffington Post about write-ins for President in the general election. The story’s emphasis is on Donald Trump’s supporters, many of whom say if Trump isn’t the Republican nominee, they will write him in on their November ballots.

On April 19, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Joseph Vodvarka should be on the April 26 Democratic primary ballot for U.S. Senate. The Commonwealth Court had ruled that he didn’t have 2,000 valid signatures, but the State Supreme Court disagreed and put him on. The issue was whether to count signatures of voters who had moved within a county since they had last registered to vote. The Commonwealth Court had invalidated such signatures in its March 30 opinion.

The late timing of the Supreme Court opinion caused confusion in some counties. The ballots in almost all counties had Vodvarka’s name on them, because the ballots had been printed before the Commonwealth Court had removed him. Between the Commonwealth Court decision and the State Supreme Court decision, notices had been printed, intended for each voting booth, telling voters that Vodvarka had been removed from the ballot and that any votes cast for him should not be counted. After Vodvarka was put back on the ballot, the state instructed county election officials to destroy those notices. But, in some polling locations, the notices were placed inside voting booths erroneously.

Also, Washington County reprinted its ballots to delete Vodvarka after the Commonwealth Court ruling, but before the Supreme Court ruling. So in Washington County, a separate ballot just for U.S. Senate, for Democrats, had to be distributed along with the regular ballots. See this story.

The State Supreme Court order is captionedIn re: Nominating Petition of Joseph Vodvarka, J-75-2016. The Supreme Court order is only one page and puts Vodvarka back on the ballot. The court will explain its reasoning later.