On April 24, the Montana House passed HB 120, the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill. It has two ballot access improvements: (1) it moves the independent candidate petition deadline (for office other than President) from March to May; (2) it makes it clear that the law, barring independent candidates from the ballot if they had too close an association with any political party, doesn’t apply to actions taken outside Montana. This has the effect of freeing independent presidential and vice-presidential candidates to get on the ballot, even if they were associated with a party. The old law was used to bar Peter Camejo from being Ralph Nader’s running mate in Montana in 2004, because Camejo had run for Governor of California as a Green in 2003.

Virginia Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, who was elected as a Republican in 2009, and who seriously considered running for Governor as an independent this year, now has some feelings of regret that he didn’t run as an independent this year. See this story. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

On April 23, the California Assembly Elections Committee defeated ACA 10 and AB 1075. The bills would have asked the voters in 2014 if they wish to amend the top-two primary system. Current law says the top two vote-getters from the June primary run against each other in November. The bills would have said that if anyone running for state partisan office gets as much as 60% in June, that person is elected and the office would not appear on the November ballot.

The Assembly Elections Committee has five Democrats and two Republicans. The vote was 2-4. The two votes in support of the measure were from Republican Dan Logue and Democrat Henry Perea. Assemblymember Isadore Hall, a Democrat, abstained. Two members of the Committee, chairman Paul Fong and vice-chair Tim Donnelly, said that electing people in June is too early, given that unexpected events can occur in the long interval until the November election. Representatives of the Libertarian Party and the Peace & Freedom Party testified against the bill.