This New York Times story explains the difficulty of collecting signatures for Republican primary candidates in New York city. With only 470,000 registered Republicans in the city, even mainstream Republicans have difficulty collecting 3,750 valid signatures of party members. As the story says, normal petitioning on the street barely works, and petitioners find they must first get a list of registered Republicans and then try to find them at home.

This is why the new legislation in Arizona, HB 3605, is so devastating to Arizona’s minor parties. The bill requires over 5,500 signatures of party members (or registered independents) and the Green Party only has about 6,000 registered members in the state.

On July 2, the California Senate Elections Committee passed two bills that alter the process for getting state initiatives on the ballot. One bill makes it easier to qualify initiatives, and one makes it more difficult.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly’s AB 1117 passed, despite opposition from the Secretary of State and the association of county election officials. It provides that the Secretary of State’s web page will carry copies of statewide initiative petitions that are currently circulating. The web page will make it possible for anyone to print out a copy of the initiative, so that individual then is free to circulate the petition. The bill, which has already passed the Assembly, now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which will hear it on August 12.

Also, Assemblyman Paul Fong’s AB 857 passed. It requires initiative proponents to collect at least 20% of the required signatures from volunteers. This bill has also passed the Assembly, and now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

On July 3, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed HB 226. It says that individuals who will be age 18 by November in even-numbered years may register to vote, and to vote, in the March primary that same year. These 17-year-old registered individuals will also be able to sign petitions while they are 17. However, they cannot circulate petitions until they are age 18. UPDATE: see this news story, which shows that the Governor signed the bill while visiting the Stevenson High School in suburban Chicago.

Governor Quinn still hasn’t acted on HB 2418, the omnibus election law bill that doubles the number of signatures needed for candidates for Chicago Alderman.