On May 14, the city council of Takoma Park, Maryland, lowered the voting age to 16 for city elections. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
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California AB 1038 may receive a vote on the Assembly floor on Thursday, May 16. This is the bill to make it illegal to pay registration drive workers according to how many registrants they obtain for any particular political party. If this bill were enacted, it would be much more difficult for either a newly-qualifying party, or an already-qualified party, to get on the ballot or remain on. The only realistic way for parties to be qualified in California is to have approximately 110,000 registered members.
No group formally supports AB 1038, but when the bill was in the Assembly Elections Committee, every Democrat on the committee voted for it. If you live in California, and especially if your Assemblymember is a Democrat, please e-mail or telephone your Assemblymember and ask for a “No” vote. Governor Jerry Brown vetoed very similar bills in both 2011 and 2012, and some federal courts have struck down laws similar to the provisions in this bill.
On May 14, the Florida Election Commission voted 5-1 that the Florida Libertarian Party should not be fined for having filed a campaign finance report a week late. The fine had been imposed in January, and was in the amount of $70,000 ($10,000 per day). The party had actually filed, but with the wrong agency. The Commission agreed with arguments that the law is too vague, and that a plausible argument could even be made that the report is not mandatory.
The Green Party was also before the Commission at the same meeting, over its $10,000 fine for being a few hours late with the same report. The Commission voted to lower the amount of the fine to $200, which was 25% of all the money the party had in its bank account.
Connecticut certified its official November 2012 vote on November 28, 2012. The state cannot correct the official totals after certification, even though in December, an error was found. The town of Rocky Hill initially reported that the Working Families nominee for State Representative, 29th district, received 3,292 votes. But on December 21, the town filed a correction, saying the true figure is 383.
For U.S. House, First District, the town had first reported 3,082 votes for the Working Families Party, but then in December said the correct total is 287. These errors occur because so many voters in Connecticut apparently fill in both bubbles on the ballot for the same candidate, when the candidate is on the ballot twice. In each of these two races, the Working Families Party and the Democratic Party had nominated the same person.
Neither race was close, so the errors didn’t affect the identity of the winner.
The Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin, has this story about the congressional bill to establish a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.