Various States Consider Bills Changing Presidential Elector Procedures

Posted on by January 18, 2013
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Bills are pending in several states to alter how that state elects presidential electors. The National Popular Vote Plan bill has been introduced so far this year in Arizona (SB 1042), Louisiana (SB 705 and HB 1095), Missouri (HB 39), New Hampshire (HB 148), and Oklahoma (SB 906).

Jurisdictions that have already passed the plan are California, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, and Washington.

Bills are pending in Maryland and New Jersey to withdraw from the plan. The Maryland bill is HB 73; the New Jersey bills are A859 and S1626.

At least three states are considering the model bill that provides that if a presidential elector votes “unfaithfully”, he or she is deemed to have been disqualified and is automatically replaced by a back-up elector. Those bills are SB 200 in Indiana, LB 167 in Nebraska, and SB 309 in Oklahoma.

Virginia has a bill for each U.S. House district to choose its own presidential elector, SB 723. News stories say Republican legislators in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are thinking about similar bills, but so far they don’t seem to have been introduced.

Nebraska State Senator Again Introduces Bill to Permit Electronic Signature-Gathering

Posted on by January 18, 2013
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Nebraska State Senator Paul Schumacher (R-Columbus) has again introduced a bill to permit voters to sign petitions on-line. His bill, LB 160, only applies to initiative, referendum and recall petitions. He introduced the same bill in the last session, but it didn’t pass. There was also a bill in the session before that to do the same thing, but it didn’t pass either.

Count of Previously Uncounted Votes in New York State Senate Race Reverses the Original Outcome

Posted on by January 18, 2013
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On January 18, the remaining uncounted votes in New York’s 46th State Senate district were counted. Whereas the original count had found a narrow victory for George Amedore, the Republican-Conservative-Independence nominee, now that the remaining ballots have been counted, there is an even narrower victory for the Democratic-Working Families nominee, Cecilia Tkaczyk. See this story.

The reason there were approximately 100 uncounted ballots until this month is that, due to election official error, those ballots had originally been determined invalid. However, last week New York state courts ruled that the ballots were valid and should be counted.

Strong Oklahoma Ballot Access Bill Introduced in House

Posted on by January 18, 2013
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Oklahoma State Representative Jeffrey Hickman has introduced HB 2134, which lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 5% of the last vote cast to exactly 5,000 signatures. Hickman has served in the legislature starting in 2004, and in the last session of the legislature was Speaker Pro Tempore. He is a Republican from Alva. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.