According to this story, an incumbent Florida judge filed for re-election and erroneously made out her filing fee check for $9 too little. The fee is $5,687.12 but she absent-mindedly wrote her check for $5,678.12. No one else filed, so a special election will be held to fill the vacancy. The incumbent judge will run in the special election.
On May 14, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed HB 2826, which requires all localities in Arizona to only hold elections in even-numbered years, and only on the date of either the state primary or the state general election. One of the awkward consequences is that many cities will either need to shorten the terms of various elected officials or lengthen them. For example, see this story about how the bill affects the city of Kingman. Thanks to Joshua Spivak of Recall Elections Blog for this news.
Even though Americans Elect became a fully-qualified party in Maine in January 2012, and state law says all qualified parties nominate by primary, the Maine Secretary of State has complied with Americans Elect’s request that no primary ballots be printed for Americans Elect. The Americans Elect request was made back on February 1, 2012, and had nothing to do with last week’s decision by Americans Elect not to nominate anyone for President and Vice-President.
Maine permits write-ins in primaries, so in theory, if Americans Elect primary ballots had been printed up, individuals could have sought the Americans Elect nomination for various partisan offices. The Maine primary is June 12.
The Secretaries of State of California and North Dakota had previously issued similar rulings.
U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson has canceled the oral argument in California Justice Committee and Constitution Party of California. It had been set for 1:30 p.m. in Los Angeles on May 21. The judge indicated he will rule on the written briefs.
U.S. House member Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) has introduced HB 5828, to provide that overseas absentee voters (including military overseas absentee voters) would only need to request an absentee ballot once, in any given election year. Existing law requires the voters to make separate requests for primary ballots and the general election ballot. The issue is especially acute for New York voters, because New York is holding three partisan primaries this year plus the general election. New York voters went to the polls in April for the presidential primary, in June for the congressional primary, and in September for the legislative and local primary.
