New Bills Introduced in Virginia to Cope with Problem that U.S. House District Boundaries Are Still Unknown

Posted on by January 23, 2012
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On January 20, the Virginia legislature passed HB 251, which draws new boundaries for U.S. House districts. However, the bill cannot go into effect until the Governor signs it, and until the U.S. Justice Department approves it, which could take months.

Petitioning in Virginia cannot proceed for President, or U.S. Senator, until the U.S. House districts are known. This is because statewide petitions, both for the primary and the general election, have a distribution requirement, and must carry the signatures of 400 voters in each U.S. House district. Also, general election presidential petitions must include the name of the candidates for elector, and one elector must live in each district.

HB 736 has been introduced, to move the Virginia non-presidential primary from June 12 to August 21, in response to the fear that district boundaries won’t be known for a while. Also, HB 1151 has been introduced, to provide that U.S. Senate petitions can circulate using the old districts. However, neither of these bills offers any relief for minor party and independent presidential candidates. Although the law says presidential petitions can start to circulate on January 1, in reality, they can’t start to circulate yet. It is surprising that the legislator who introduced HB 1151 didn’t include presidential petitions in his bill. See this story about the two bills.

California Secretary of State Says Qualified Parties Are Free to Avoid a Presidential Primary if they Wish

Posted on by January 23, 2012
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On January 23, the California Secretary of State ruled that if Americans Elect doesn’t want a presidential primary ballot prepared for it in California, the Secretary will accept that decision. Americans Elect had already told California that it prefers not to have a government presidential primary prepared for itself. This decision will save taxpayer dollars, because printing up primary ballots for Americans Elect would probably have cost $2,000,000. Here is the ruling.

Americans Elect also decided not to have county central committee elections. The California election law already made it clear that parties are free to decline county central committee elections for themselves if they wish. The Libertarian Party also doesn’t elect county central committee members.

All qualified parties in California are expected to choose one of four types of party organization plan that are in the election code. Americans Elect chose the Peace & Freedom Party code section. This is the same code section that all California qualified minor parties have chosen during the last 35 years. The other code sections in the election law are titled, “Republican”, “Democratic”, and “American Independent.”

American Independent Party Opens its Primary to Independent Voters

Posted on by January 23, 2012
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On January 22, the American Independent Party of California held a meeting of party officers, and voted to tell the California Secretary of State that it will permit independents to vote in its 2012 primary. Of course, because of Proposition 14, the only partisan primaries will be for President.

The American Independent Party allowed independents to vote in its primaries in 2008 and earlier years, but in 2010 it changed its rules and didn’t allow independents to vote in its primary.