North Carolina Senator E. S. “Buck” Newton (R-Wilson) has introduced SB 82, to abolish the straight-ticket device. Bills are now pending to abolish straight-ticket devices in Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. Thanks to Kevin Hayes for this news.
The Bangor Daily News has this story about the bill to use Ranked-Choice Voting in Maine elections for Congress and state office. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for the link.
Gabriel Gomez, one of the Republicans planning to run for U.S. Senate in the June Massachusetts special election, has signed a contract with a paid petitioning firm to get him on the primary ballot. The 10,000 valid signatures are due February 27. See this story, which says that the contract will be in excess of $100,000. The paid petitioning company, Spoonworks, is run by Harold Hubschman, who was an expert witness on the side of the state of Illinois in last month’s lawsuit over the constitutionality of Illinois ballot access in special elections.
The Oklahoma Senate Rules Committee will hear SB 668 on Wednesday, February 13, at 10 a.m. SB 668 is one of the ballot access reform bills pending, but it is by far the weaker of the two. All it does is reduce the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party in midterm years, from 5% of the last presidential vote, to 5% of the last gubernatorial vote. Turnouts in mid-term years are typically 30% lower than in presidential years, so the bill would reduce the 2014 requirement from 66,744 valid signatures to 51,739 valid signatures. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.
On February 11, only ten minutes before the challenge deadline, the petitions of three candidates for U.S. House (in the special election to fill the vacant Illinois 2nd district seat) were challenged. Petitions for the Green Party candidate, and two of the three independent candidates, were challenged. One independent candidate, Marcus Lewis, did not have his petition challenged. Lewis insists he and his campaign had nothing to do with the challenge.
The challenged candidates are Green Party nominee LeAlan Jones, and these two independent candidates: Curtiss Bey and Elizabeth Pahlke. The hearing on the challenges will probably be next week.
