On March 5, the Oklahoma Senate defeated SB 275 by a vote of 23 “yes” to 22 “no”. The Senate has 48 members, and bills need 25 votes to pass. The bill would have moved the deadline for candidates to file for the (non-presidential) June primary, from the 2nd Wednesday in April, to the 2nd Monday in January. The bill would have made the same deadline change for non-presidential independent candidates.

Because the deadline for petitions for newly-qualifying parties is March 1, the bill said that candidates of a newly-qualifying party would be exempt from the January deadline, and would have filed in April.

On March 22, the Idaho House passed SB 1108 by a vote of 45-21. The bill had already passed the Senate. It requires that statewide initiative petitions contain the signatures of 6% of the registered voters in each of 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts. Current law requires that the petition be signed by 6% of the state’s registered voters, but it doesn’t matter where in the state they live. See this story.

In the November 2012 election, one Ohio state house district race had disputed election returns. Final figures show that Republican incumbent Al Landis of the 98th district defeated his Democratic opponent, Josh O’Farrell, by eight votes. However, irregularities were charged. The Ohio House will adjudicate the issue. On March 13 a committee was appointed to investigate the details of the vote count problems. See this story, which says the process will take several weeks.