On April 25, the Louisiana House & Government Affairs Committee passed HB 1095, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. The same bill had passed that Committee in the last legislative session as well. The sponsor, Representative Walt Leger, is Speaker Pro Tempore and is a Democrat from New Orleans. The Committee first defeated a motion to delay the bill after further study; the vote on that was 4-6. Then, the bill was passed on to the House.
Some months ago, identical bills were introduced in each house of the Tennessee legislature to lower the number of signatures for newly-qualifying parties to appear on the ballot. They are HB 3802, by Representative Harry Tindell (D-Knoxville), and SB 3687, by Senator Jim Kyle (D-Memphis). The bills are not worded very clearly, but they seem to suggest that a party that submits 1,000 signatures is ballot-qualified for all partisan office, and a party that submits 250 signatures within a legislative district is ballot-qualified for that district. The bills have an urgency clause, so if enacted, they would go into effect immediately.
The bills also say that after a party qualifies, it retains that status for four years.
The bills have several times been set for committee hearings, but then that hearing was always postponed. Therefore, so far, neither bill has made any headway.
At 3 p.m., Americans Elect will turn in approximately 18,000 signature to the Maryland State Board of Elections, to qualify as a party. The law requires 10,000 valid signatures.
The Hamilton County Board of Elections expects to finish counting the votes in the disputed 2010 election for Judge of Juvenile Court, by Friday, April 27. This is the race that has created one of lengthiest election-counting disputes in the nation in recent years. The issue involving this race has already been in the U.S. Supreme Court once, and may go there again. Also it has twice been in the 6th circuit. The issue is whether certain provisional ballots should be counted. The underlying issue is the extent to which equal protection applies to the vote-counting process.
The two candidates in that November 2010 election were Tracie Hunter, the Democratic nominee, and John Williams, the Republican nominee. UPDATE: see this story about the ballot-counting process. The public is invited to watch.
Laurie Roth, who tried to obtain the Constitution Party’s presidential nomination, now says she may run as an independent. See this story. She is a talk-radio host in eastern Washington state.
