Three city councilmembers in Washington, D.C., have introduced B21-0468. It would lower the voting age to 16 for all office. The authors are David Grosso, an independent; and two Democrats, Brianne Nadeau and Charles Allen.
The bill was introduced November 3, 2015, and is pending in the Judiciary Committee. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Three local state judges in St. Clair County, Illinois, have filed to run for re-election in a partisan race. Normally incumbent judges who wish to retain their seats don’t do that. Instead they run in retention elections. However, the law requires judges running in retention elections to poll at least 60% “Yes”, and apparently these three judges would rather run in a candidate-versus-candidate election.
The legality of their re-election method is unsettled. This story says a lawsuit will be filed to force them to run in retention elections.
California holds presidential primaries for six parties on June 7, 2016. The Libertarian Party has asked the state to list the same twelve presidential candidates on its primary ballot who are now listed on the national party’s web page. They are: Marc Allan Feldman, John Hale, Cecil Ince, Gary Johnson, Steve Kerbel, John McAfee, Darryl Perry, Austin Petersen, Derrick Michael Reed, Jack Robinson Jr., Rhett Smith, and Joy Waymire.
On January 19, the Libertarian Party of Ohio filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging that the 2013 law on how newly-qualifying parties get on the ballot violates the Ohio Constitution.
The party has been trying for months to persuade federal courts in Ohio that the 2013 law violates the Ohio Constitution, but the federal courts have said that this issue belongs in state court. Normally it is true that federal courts can’t decide whether state laws violate a state Constitution. But there are exceptions, although in this case the federal courts don’t think the exceptions apply.
The new case in state court is Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, 16-cv-554. The Ohio Constitution appears to say that all parties must nominate by primary. In presidential years the Ohio primary for all office is in March. But the 2013 law says new parties must submit petitions by July of an election year, and then they nominate without a primary (obviously they can’t nominate by primary, because the primary is already over). The new law implies, but does not say, that new parties should nominate by convention.
If the 2013 legislative session had done a good job, it would have set in motion the process to amend the Ohio Constitution, so that it would no longer say new parties nominate by primary. The Ohio Constitution is the only Constitution in the entire U.S. that mandates that all parties nominate by primary. The Oklahoma Constitution says that the legislature may provide that all parties nominate by primary, but the Oklahoma Constitution does not say the legislature must do this.
Oklahoma State Senator Ron Justice (R-Chickasha) has introduced SB 1108. It would allow the State Election Board authority to leave candidates for presidential elector off the ballot. Instead, a list of presidential elector candidates would be posted in each polling place.
Oklahoma is one of only five states that still prints the names of all presidential elector candidates on the ballot. The others are Arizona, Idaho, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Long ago all states printed the names of the candidates for elector on the ballot, and let voters vote for individual electors. The last state to let voters vote for particular candidates for president elector was Vermont, in 1976.
Leaving the electors off the ballot simplifies the ballot and makes it somewhat shorter. The Oklahoma Election Board supports this bill. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.
