On March 9, the Maine Libertarian Party filed this reply brief in its ballot access case.
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On March 2, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez signed HB 138. It lets 17-year-olds vote in primaries for all office if they will be age 18 by the general election. There are now 16 states that permit this for all office, and 22 who permit it for president. See this Ballotpedia list.
The New Mexico bill does not go into effect this year. Thanks to Doug Carver for this news.
Jim Bennett, a former Secretary of State of Alabama, has this column in the Birmingham News. The last few paragraphs seem to endorse Instant Runoff Voting, at least in primaries, so that primary run-offs can be abolished. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Bebe Heiskell, County Commissioner for Walker County, Georgia, will leave the Republican Party and run for re-election as an independent this year. She has been the sole commissioner for Walker County starting in 2000. See this story.
Walker County is in northwest Georgia and has a population of 68,756. The main town is LaFayette.
Morris Fiorina, a political science professor at Stanford, says in this interview that a major party might get a presidential nominee who is better at governing, if it didn’t use presidential primaries and caucuses across the nation to choose its presidential nominees. Of course, the system he seems to prefer was in place in the United States before 1972.