The State, daily newspaper for Columbia, South Carolina, explains here that South Carolina has many election laws which are not enforced. For example, state law says precincts cannot have more than 1,500 registered voters, but two-thirds of the precincts in Richland County did have more than 1,500 registered voters. One precinct had 4,029 registered voters.
New York state law does not permit voters to vote before election day, unless they will be absent. However, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has just introduced a bill for early voting. The bill would provide such early voting during the two weeks before an election, or one week before a primary or special election. The New York State legislative web page does not yet list any 2013 bills, so the bill number is unknown. See this story. 33 states already have either “no excuse-absentee voting” or “early voting.”
On December 20, a U.S. District Court Magistrate in Brooklyn, New York, heard oral arguments in Credico v New York State Board of Elections, 1:10cv-4555. The issue is a discriminatory law that lets two qualified parties jointly nominate the same candidate and puts such a candidate on the ballot twice; yet when two unqualified parties jointly nominate the same candidate, the candidate can only appear on the ballot once, with both party labels squeezed into the tiny space next to his or her name.
This case arose in 2010, when both the Libertarian Party, and the Anti-Prohibition Party, nominated Randy Credico for U.S. Senate. The state refused to list him twice. The oral argument lasted almost an hour. The state focuses mostly on procedural issues, rather than defending the substance of the law.
In less than a week, proponents of the Initiative process in Washington state will submit signatures for their initiative that makes it easier for initiatives to get on the ballot. The measure expands the collection period from six months to one year, and also makes it illegal for opponents of an initiative to “push, shove, touch, spit, throw objects, yell, scream, be verbally abusive, block, maintain an intimidating presence, or take other tumultuous conduct” designed to interfere with speech between petitioners and passersby. Also, the measure says that when an initiative is found to have enough valid signatures, it must be placed on the ballot; lawsuits alleging that the measure violates the State or U.S. Constitution must be filed after the election is over, not before. The initiative needs 241,153 valid signatures and proponents have not said yet how many signatures they have collected. The measure also applies to referenda. Thanks to Paul Jacob for this news.
ProPublica has this story about groups that wanted to help Montana U.S. Senator Jon Tester get re-elected in November 2012. So, they made independent expenditures in favor of the Libertarian in the race, Dan Cox.
The story is not completely accurate; it says that the Libertarian nominee for U.S. Senate received more votes than any other Libertarian in the 2012 election, but actually the Libertarian running for Clerk of the Montana Supreme Court received more votes than Cox did.
One wonders why Montana Republicans, who have majorities in both houses of the state legislature, don’t introduce a bill for Ranked Choice Voting, or Approval Voting. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
