On February 21, the Missouri Constitution Party held a nominating convention to choose a candidate for the upcoming special election, U.S. House, 8th district. The party nominated Doug Enyart, owner of Clearwater Forest Consultants and an expert in forestry management. There will be four candidates on the June ballot for this seat; the others will be the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian nominees. No petition is needed for any of them because all four parties are ballot-qualified.
On February 27, the Oklahoma Senate unanimously passed SB 668, which eases ballot access for newly-qualifying parties in midterm years, but does not reduce the number of signatures in presidential years. Current law says the number of signatures is 5% of the last vote cast. If the bill passes in this form, the law would require 5% of the last gubernatorial vote. For 2014, the number of signatures would change from 66,744 to 51,739.
Oklahoma is the only state with a mandatory petition for newly-qualifying parties that is higher than 3% of the last gubernatorial vote.
On February 27, the South Dakota Senate Local Government Committee passed HB 1018, which lets ballot-qualified parties remove themselves from the ballot. The purpose of this is to enable Americans Elect to terminate its qualified party status. Without the bill, the party would have its own primary in 2014, whether it wants it or not.
The Senate Committee considered an amendment to the bill that would have made it more difficult for all minor parties to remain on the ballot. The amendment to the bill, which was not passed, would have required a party to meet the vote test in presidential election years as well as in midterm years. Current law says a party only loses its status when it fails to get 2.5% for Governor. If the amendment had passed, the vote test would also need to be met for President. There was also some discussion of making the vote test applicable in both presidential and midterm years but saying it only had to be met once every four years, but that idea really wouldn’t have changed the current law and it was also abandoned.
Scotusblog’s eye-witness reporter in the U.S. Supreme Court oral argument (in Shelby County, Alabama v Holder) predicts that five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will vote to invalidate the coverage formula for section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act. If this happens, Congress would be faced with the question of whether to write a new coverage formula. If Congress did nothing, then presumably Section 5 could no longer be enforced. Section five of the Voting Rights Act is the part of the Act that requires certain states and local jurisdictions to get permission from the federal government before changing any election law or practice.
UPDATE: here is the transcript.
The Illinois State Board of Elections will hear the petition challenges on March 7, concerning the special U.S. House election, 2nd district. The outcome will determine whether LeAlan Jones, Elizabeth Pahlke, and Curtis Bey, are on the April 2013 ballot. Jones is the Green Party nominee and the other two candidates are independent candidates. Their petitions have been challenged, but there are substantial problems with the challenge. There is some evidence that the challenger did not see the petitions before she challenged. Also it is possible she doesn’t live in the 2nd district, and if she doesn’t, her challenges are not valid.
