On February 11, a Colorado bill to provide for all-mail voting was withdrawn by the sponsor, after it appeared the bill had considerable opposition. The bill was HB 1131. See this story.
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Nebraska State Senator William P. Avery (D-Lincoln) has introduced LB 399. It eliminates the county distribution requirement for statewide non-presidential independent petitions. In 2007 the legislature had changed the law for statewide independent candidates (for office other than President), by saying the petition must be signed by at least 50 voters from each of one-third of the 93 counties.
Since the 2007 change, no statewide non-presidential independent has managed to qualify for the ballot. To get at least 50 signatures from each of 31 counties means having to collect signatures from counties in which fewer than 4,000 votes were cast in the last presidential election. A large majority of Nebraska counties have very small populations.
The bill instead requires at least 750 signatures from each of the three U.S. House districts. The constitutionality of the existing law is being challenged in U.S. District Court in Citizens in Charge v Gale, 4:09-cv-3255. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that county distribution requirements for statewide petitions are unconstitutional. Nebraska once had a county distribution requirement for petitions to recognize new parties, but that law, which only required signatures from 19 counties, was declared unconstitutional in 1984 in Libertarian Party of Nebraska v Beermann.
On February 10, the Kentucky Senate passed SB 41 by a vote of 23-13. It says that independent voters may vote in partisan primaries. An identical bill by the same author had passed the Kentucky Senate in 2010 by a vote of 25-12, but the 2010 bill then went to the House and did not even receive a hearing. Perhaps this year the House will treat the bill differently.
On February 10, the British House of Commons overwhelmingly rejected a bill to let some convicted prisoners vote. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
On February 10, U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith, a Bush Jr., appointee, upheld Rhode Island’s law on how public funding is distributed to political parties. Rhode Island taxpayers may choose to contribute to a qualified political party on their state income tax forms, by writing in the name of the party they wish. But they can also choose to donate to the state’s “nonpartisan account.” Taxpayers get a state income tax credit for their donations, which are limited to $5. Here is the 16-page decision, which is Moderate Party of Rhode Island v Lynch, 10-265.
The Moderate Party sued over the formula for distributing the money in the nonpartisan account. One-fourth of the money goes to the political parties that elected statewide state officers in the last midterm election (there are five such offices, and a party gets a 5% share of the fund for each of these offices that the party won). The other 75% of the nonpartisan fund goes to each of the qualified parties, in proportion to the share of the vote that party’s gubernatorial candidate received. Under this formula, the Moderate Party does get some money from the fund. The decision says the party did not show that the distribution formula injures the party.
On February 7, a bill was introduced in the Tennessee Senate to keep presidential candidates off primary ballots, and also off the general election ballot, unless the national political party submits a birth certificate for such presidential candidate. As noted earlier on this site, there had been somewhat similar bills introduced already this year in ten other states. This is the only bill in any state that puts the responsibility on a national party committee to submit such documents in a presidential primary.
The Tennessee bill, SB 366, does not require independent presidential candidates to file a birth certificate. The bill’s sponsor is Senator Mae Beavers (R-Mount Juliet).