The Justice Party had been planning to hold a national gathering February 22-24 in Oakland, California. However that meeting has been postponed until the autumn of 2013.
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Two identical Florida bills, HB 25 and SB 388, relax the existing law that restricts whom political parties may nominate. Existing law, since 2011, has told parties that they can’t nominate anyone who was a member of some other party during the year before the candidate filing deadline. The bills change that to provide that parties can’t nominate someone who was a member of another party at any time during the period six months before the general election.
Because of the existing severe restriction, a former state legislator, Nancy Argenziano, was forced to run for a seat in the State House last year as the nominee of the Independent Party. She wanted to run as a Democrat, but she was not permitted to do so because she had unknowingly and accidentally registered as a member of the Independent Party during 2011. She still did well in the November 2012 election, polling 42.03% in a two-person race as the Independent Party nominee.
HB 25 and SB 388 have many other election law provisions as well, including a relaxation of the severe requirements placed on organizations that conduct voter registration drives. Some of those restrictions were enjoined by a federal court last year. The existing law requires voter registration organizations to be subject to severe fines if they don’t submit a voter registration form to election officials within 48 hours of the voter having filled out that form.
David Rea has this op-ed in the Auburn, Maine Sun Journal, advocating that the Maine legislature pass the pending bills that would use Ranked-Choice Voting. Rea is an educator and author in Boulder, Colorado. He actually argues for any form of multi-choice voting, which could include preference voting as well as Ranked-Choice voting. Thanks to Steve Chessin for the link.
Also, here is a somewhat similar op-ed in The Daily Campus, the student publication at the University of Connecticut. It was written by Gregory Koch.
Randall Hayes’ blog The Bald Cypress has an informative post about the new Louisiana registration tally compared to the old one. Because the state purged inactive voters, the total number of registered voters in the state declined. The only qualified party that gained registrants between the old tally and the new tally is the Libertarian Party. Among the parties attempting to qualify, the only one that gained registrations is the Conservative Party, which is now over half-way toward meeting the 1,000-member requirement.
Missouri is holding a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 8th district, in June. The Missouri Libertarian Party will choose its nominee in a convention on February 9 at the Scott County Courthouse in Benton. Two candidates have already declared for the nomination. See this press release.