Eleven South Dakota legislators, all Republicans, have introduced SB 166. It would change the number of signatures for a statewide initiative from 5% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 5% of the number of registered voters. If enacted, this would almost double the number of signatures needed.
On February 4, the Michigan Senate Elections & Government Reform Committee passed SB 44. It moves the presidential primary from February to the third Tuesday in March.
On February 5, the New Hampshire House Election Law Committee heard testimony on HB 665, which eases ballot access for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. The bill lowers the petition for all partisan office to one-tenth of 1% of that area’s population. For statewide office, in this decade, it would lower the petition from 3,000 to 1,317 signatures.
Three witnesses testified in favor of the bill, and written testimony pointed out that in November 2014, New Hampshire was one of only five states with a Democratic-Republican ballot monopoly for all the statewide offices (the others were California, Alabama, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania). Also, in 2006, New Hampshire was one of only four states with a Dem-Rep monopoly for all the statewide offices. And in 2004, Libertarian Party presidential nominee Michael Badnarik was on the ballot in every state except New Hampshire and Oklahoma.
The only witness who testified against HB 665 was Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan, who works under Secretary of State Bill Gardner. Gardner has been Secretary of State since 1979, and was in office in 1981 when the legislature increased the statewide petition from 1,000 to 3,000 signatures.
The committee seemed favorably disposed toward the bill, but wants to entertain a few amendments to the bill.
On February 4, the South Dakota Senate amended SB 69, the ballot access restriction bill, to make the bill even more restrictive. The Senate then passed the bill on a party-line vote, with all the “No” votes coming from Democrats. The bill passed 25-8.
The bill now injures ballot access three ways: (1) it moves the deadline for a newly-qualifying party from March to February; (2) it says members of qualified parties cannot sign an independent candidate’s petition (although it does lower the number of signatures for an independent candidate); (3) the new amendment vastly increases the difficulty for a member of a newly-qualifying party to get on his or her own party’s primary ballot.
The new part of the bill, described in (3) above, raises the number of signatures for the member of a newly-qualifying party to get on his or her own party’s primary ballot for statewide office from 250 signatures to 1% of all the registered voters in the state who are not members of qualified parties. There are currently 106,567 voters in South Dakota who are not members of a qualified party, so the primary petition would rise from 250 to 1,066. Yet, the bill continues the current restriction that says independent voters can’t sign a primary petition! It is utterly illogical to say that a Libertarian trying to get on the Libertarian primary ballot needs a number of signatures equal to 1% of the number of independent voters, and yet independent voters can’t sign that petition.
Not only that, but the person who wrote the latest amendment does not seem to know that the number of signatures for primary petitions of newly-qualifying parties is already in section 12-5-1.4. The bill does not amend 12-5-1.4. Yet the bill expands 12-6-7 so that it is also a law on how many signatures are needed for the primary petitions of newly-qualifying parties. The new 12-6-7 (requiring 1,066 signatures of party members) thus contradicts the old, unamended 12-5-1.4 (which requires 250).
Seth Masket, a political scientist who specializes partly in political parties and partisanship, has published this essay which outlines the institutional weaknesses of state legislatures in many states, but which then suggests that these deficiencies can partly be overcome by political parties. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
