Current Vermont election laws says that if a party entitled to a primary doesn’t nominate anyone at its primary, then the party committee can choose a nominee after the primary is over.  This year’s omnibus election law bill, HB 477, deletes this method for nominating a candidate.  The Progressive Party, which uses this committee method fairly often, is hoping to get that part of the bill deleted.  The bill has a hearing in the House Government Operations Committee on March 18.  Thanks to Rick Kissell for this news.

Two Nevada Republican Assemblymembers have introduced AB 302, which moves the primary from June to January.  It also would establish a presidential primary in Nevada, on the same January date.  Currently Nevada has a caucus to choose delegates to major party national conventions, not a presidential primary.

Nevada already was permitted by the Democratic and Republican Party rules to hold a caucus in February.  Nevada is one of four states that have the right to hold early processes.  But this Nevada bill, if enacted, would violate national party rules.  Josh Putnam at this link explains the various ramifications if this bill passes.

The bill would not change the petition deadlines for newly-qualifying parties or independent candidates.

On March 13, the South Dakota legislature passed SB 69, which makes ballot access worse for both newly-qualifying parties and independent candidates.  The bill was amended on the House floor to soften some of the harm, and the Senate accepted the House amendments.

The bill moves the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties from the last Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in March.  The original bill had moved that deadline into February, so the final  version still makes the deadline more restrictive, but not as bad as the earlier version.  For 2016, the deadline would move from March 29 to March 1.

The bill still says that no one can sign an independent candidate petition if the potential signer is a registered member of a qualified party.  Current law lets any registered voter sign an independent candidate’s petition.

The bill no longer makes the petition for a member of a small ballot-qualified party to get on the primary ballot any worse than it already is.  Current law says a member of a new party needs 250 signatures of party members to get on the primary ballot for statewide office, which is a large problem if the party only has 500 registered members, or even if it has 2,000 members, because they are scattered all over the state.  The bill says a candidate of a new party now has a choice of obtaining 250 signatures of party members, or he or she can also obtain signatures of independent voters, but if that alternative is used, the requirement rises to 1% of the number of independent voters, which would be over 1,000 signatures of independent voters and/or party members.

Another provision of the bill raises the number of signatures for members of large parties to get on the primary ballot.   Existing law requires primary petitions from 1% of a party’s previous gubernatorial general election vote (if the party is not a new party), but the bill changes that to 1% of the number of registrants in that party.  That change has a worse impact on Democrats than on Republicans.  Many politically active people in South Dakota are working to persuade the Governor to veto the bill.