The Phoenix city council has voted to sue the state of Arizona, to overturn the new law that tells all cities (even charter cities) that they must hold their city elections in even years. Phoenix has long held city elections in odd years. If the new law is not overturned, the normal terms of office for city council members will need to be either shortened, or lengthened. See this story.
On June 12, the Ohio Senate unanimously passed HB 509, which moves the deadline from August to September for large qualified parties to certify their presidential and vice-presidential nominees. Without this bill, the Ohio deadline, if enforced, would have made it impossible for both major parties to meet the deadline, because their national conventions are so late this year.
As noted before, this bill takes effect immediately, and only applies to the 2012 election, and only affects parties that polled at least 20% of the vote in the last election. Other qualified parties still have an August deadline. However, the practical effects of that discriminatory policy are nil, because all the small qualified parties in Ohio will have held their presidential conventions before August.
The part of the bill dealing with presidential deadlines does not amend the Election Code, probably because the bill only affects the 2012 election. Therefore, the contents of the bill will never be printed in the state’s statutes, and future historians will probably not even notice the bill ever existed.
On May 31, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed SB 236 into law. It says that newly-qualifying parties must identify their nominees in June, even though the petition to qualify that party is not due until August. The bill takes effect immediately. The only party that is adversely affected this year is the Libertarian Party, which is the only newly-qualifying party expected to successfully petition in New Hampshire this year. If the bill had not passed, the Libertarians would have more time to recruit more candidates. See this story. In New Hampshire, newly-qualifying parties nominate by convention.
The bill does not affect independent candidates. The bill is probably unconstitutional, at least as applied to a newly-qualifying party that has not yet chosen its presidential nominee by June. However, the Libertarians already chose their national ticket in May. If Americans Elect had not dropped out of the 2012 presidential race, and if it hadn’t chosen its national ticket by mid-June, then Americans Elect would have been in a good position to sue New Hampshire. New Hampshire is the only state in the nation in which no minor party or independent candidate has ever won a constitutional ballot access case.
The New Hampshire primary (for office other than President) is on September 11. The bill is discriminatory, because it forces newly-qualifying parties to nominate their candidates three months before the major parties must nominate.
On June 12, CNN broadcast an interview with former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura. Venture said voters who really want to rebel ought to vote for Gary Johnson. See this story. Thanks to Starchild for the link.
Here is a link to the Arizona Secretary of State’s web page, showing election returns for U.S. House, 8th district, special election. The ballot had Democratic, Republican, and Green Party nominees. The Democratic nominee is winning. The Green nominee has 2.48% (as of 8:40 p.m. Arizona time). By comparison, the Green Party had three U.S. House nominees in Arizona in November 2010, and they averaged 1.65% of the vote.
