On March 10, the Utah House passed HB 410 by a vote of 58-14. The bill says that Utah’s presidential primary will be on a date that makes it earlier than any other state’s primary or caucus. However, the bill only goes into effect if the Utah legislature appropriates funds to hold the primary, and only if the Utah legislature passes a bill in the future making the vote on-line.
All of the “no” votes were cast by Republicans.
On March 7, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez signed HB 368, which makes three ballot access improvements: (1) the petition deadline for a newly-qualifying party moves from April to late June; (2) signatures on that petition are presumed valid and do not need individual checking; (3) the number of signatures for a different type of petition, the nominee petition, are reduced from 1% of the last vote cast, to 1% of the last gubernatorial vote. That last change has no impact in presidential election years, but it lowers the number of signatures in midterm years by approximately 25%. For 2014, the nominee petitions for statewide office will be 6,018 signatures. The bill takes effect immediately.
This bill only came into existence because in December 2013, the Constitution Party won its lawsuit against the April petition deadline. Frequently when a minor party or independent candidate wins a constitutional lawsuit on one point, the legislature responds favorably by not only fixing the law declared void, but also makes other improvements.
New Mexico is the only state that requires a petition for a party nominee. The requirement was passed in 1969 and does not apply to presidential nominees. The requirement only applies to qualified minor parties, not qualified major parties. The nominee petition requirement is illogical. Once a candidate has been nominated by a ballot-qualified party, that candidate should be deemed to have a modicum of popular support and should not need his or her own separate petition. Maryland once had such nominee petitions but the State Appeals Court ruled them unconstitutional in 2003.
On March 7, the Connecticut Joint Committee on Government Administration and Elections passed HB 5126, the National Popular Vote bill. The vote was 9-4. All the Democrats on the Committee voted for the bill. Four of the Republicans voted against it, and one Republican, Representative Rosa Rebimbas, did not vote.
India holds a parliamentary election in April and May 2014. It is expected that the various parties, candidates, and other participants will spend $5,000,000,000. This will be the second most expensive election campaign in world history, topped only by the U.S. 2012 election. See this story.
Indian polls are only open one day, but each state votes on a different day. The election dates for the 2014 election run from April 7 to May 12. India will fill all 543 seats in Parliament. This year India appears to have a multi-party system. See this wikipedia article on the election.
Massachusetts currently has no ballot-qualified parties, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties. Massachusetts requires parties to poll 3% for any statewide race, every two years.
The Green Party will run nominees this year for Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Auditor, and is highly likely to poll 3% for at least one of these races, if not all three. See this story. Those offices only require 5,000 signatures.
Having qualified party status in a presidential year is valuable, because in 2009 the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that stand-ins are not permitted on minor party and independent candidate petitions. Therefore, if a minor party doesn’t have qualified status in a presidential year, it can’t start to petition until it has chosen its presidential and vice-presidential nominees, and the petition, which requires 10,000 signatures, is due on August 2, 2016. Obviously, if a party has qualified status, it need not petition for president and can tell the state as late as September who its presidential and vice-presidential nominees are.
Massachusetts also has a procedure for an unqualified party to become ballot-qualified in advance of any particular election, but it is so difficult, it has never been used. It has existed since 1990 and requires the group to obtain registration membership of 1% of the state total.
