The Arizona legislature adjourned for the year on the evening of May 3. The session did not pass the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill, HB 2379. That bill had many provisions. One of them would have increased the difficulty for a candidate to get on a presidential primary ballot.

Existing law lets anyone qualify, with no fee and no petition, if the candidate has a campaign office. The law would have required candidates to either submit 1,000 signatures, or demonstrate that the candidate was already on the presidential primary ballot in at least 20 other states, or had already qualified for primary season matching funds. The latter two choices are not realistic because Arizona has one of the five earliest presidential primaries in the nation, and filing for the Arizona presidential primary closes too early for candidates to have realistically accomplished either of the last two alternative ways for qualifying.

On May 2, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously ruled that over 100 candidates who filed in the Democratic and Republican June 12 must be removed from the ballot. They all failed to file a statement of economic interests. The case is Anderson v South Carolina Election Commission. It is possible the legislature will rush a bill through, which will still permit these candidates to run. The Democratic and Republican Parties may also ask for a rehearing, although it is unlikely the Court would change its mind at this late date.

Qualified minor parties in South Carolina all nominate by convention, and no minor party candidates are affected, as far as is known.

On May 2, the Oklahoma House rejected the Senate amendments to HB 1058. HB 1058 is the bill that was introduced in 2011 in the House to ease ballot access for newly-qualifying parties. As passed last year in the House, the bill cut the number of signatures from 5% of the last vote cast (currently 51,739 signatures) to exactly 22,500. This year the Senate passed the bill, but amended it so it does not decrease the number of signatures at all in presidential years; as amended, all the bill does is cut the number of signatures in mid-term years.

The action of the House, on May 2, 2012, rejecting the Senate amendments, is a good sign. It seems to show the House still likes the original House version, which is a much better version. The House has appointed its members to a Conference Committee.