On May 16, Americans Elect submitted its ballot access petition in Alaska. The petition, if approved, will mean that Americans Elect is a limited political party in Alaska for 2012. A limited political party is one that is only on the ballot for President and Vice-President, but not other office.
On May 18, the Ohio House passed one of the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bills, HB 194. The bill is apparently an attempt to repair the old law for minor party ballot access, because the old law was held unconstitutional in 2006. The bill moves the petition deadline (to qualify a new party) from 120 days before the primary, to 90 days before the primary. It also moves the entire primary (for President and all other office) in presidential election years from March to May. Therefore, if this bill is signed into law, the 2012 petition deadline will be early February. In Jenness v Fortson, the U.S. Supreme Court said a February petition deadline to qualify a new party is “unreasonably early.” Therefore, this bill, if signed into law, would likely still be unconstitutional.
The bill does not lower the number of signatures for a new or minor party, nor does it change the vote test for a party to remain ballot-qualified. The omnibus election law bill in the Senate, SB 148, at least lowers the number of signatures from 1% of the last vote cast, to one-half of 1% of the last vote cast. Also the Senate bill has a special provision for parties that only want to run for President to submit signatures 80 days before the general election, but the House bill does not. Thanks to Frontloading HQ for the news about HB 194 passing the House.
On May 18, the Oklahoma Senate passed SB 91 by a vote of 41-3. This is the bill to require birth certificates to be submitted for presidential candidates. The bill had passed both houses already, but then it went to a conference committee because the versions in each house differed. The Oklahoma legislature sits until May 27 so this bill will probably have time to pass the House again.
On May 18, the Arkansas Libertarian Party submitted approximately 16,000 signatures to become a qualified party in Arkansas for the first time. The law requires 10,000. The party held a press conference; see this story.
On May 17, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell signed SB 31, which provides explicitly that write-in votes can be valid even when the voter didn’t spell the candidate’s name correctly.
On March 6, 2011, Estonia held a parliamentary election in which voters were free to vote on the internet. The Helsinki Accords organization, ODIHR, has just issued a report on that election. See this blog post at Election Updates. The post contains a link to the full report.