Interesting election law bills that have already been defeated in the Virginia legislature this year are:

1. SB 507, which forces all qualified parties to nominate by primary, lost in the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee on January 21. Current law lets them choose whether to nominate by primary or convention.

2. SB 474, which deletes the ability of incumbents to dictate to their own party how that party nominates in that incumbent’s race for re-election (either convention or primary), lost in the same committee on January 21.

3. HB 645, which puts party labels on the general election ballot for partisan county office, lost in the House Privileges Committee on January 24.

Two bills to ask applicants on a voter registration form to choose a party, or independent status, have not moved, so are likely to fail. They are HB 31 and HB 55.

A bill that seem likely to pass is HB 105, which says that write-ins (for office other than President) will no longer be counted unless it appears the write-in candidate might have won. That bill passed the House on January 22, by 83-14. Also likely to pass is SB 319, which moves the non-presidential primary from the second Tuesday in June to the third Tuesday in June.

Law professor Eugene Volokh has this commentary about the January 23 decision of the Tenth Circuit, Riddle v Hickenlooper. That decision struck down Colorado’s law that lets contributors give twice as much money to a candidate nominated in a primary (i.e., Democrats and Republicans) than to a minor party, independent, or write-in candidate. Thanks to Jon Roland for the link.

On January 24, the Republican National Committee approved the changes in the presidential nominating process that the party’s Rules Committees had adopted the day before. See this story. The date of the 2016 national convention isn’t set yet, but the article suggests it is most likely to be in June 2016. The date will be set in April 2014.