On May 24, the Ohio Senate passed SB 148 by a vote of 23-10. Like a somewhat similar bill that has passed the house, HB 194, it attempts to fix the old ballot access law that was held unconstitutional in 2006.

SB 148 cuts the number of signatures in half, from 1% of the last vote cast, to one-half of 1% of the last vote cast. Thus, it is better than HB 194, which does not lower the number of signatures. For 2012, if SB 148 were signed into law, the requirement would be 19,263 valid signatures. However, the petition deadline would be 100 days before the primary, which is still unconstitutional. The bill does not attempt to move the primary, so in 2012 the primary would be March 6 and the deadline would be the day after Thanksgiving this year.

The bill has a silly provision that says only half the signatures would be due in late November of the year before the election, and the other half would be due in early December of the year before the election. The original version of SB 148 had a special, much later deadline for parties that only want to run for President (80 days before the general election), but that idea was deleted from the bill before it passed the Senate.

On May 20, Kansas HB 2080 was sent to the Governor. It cancels the 2012 presidential primary, in order to save money. The Governor is expected to sign it.

Nevada AB 81 has been amended to provide that petitions for a new party must be completed by April of an election year. Current law requires these petitions to be completed by May. AB 81 is one of the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bills. It has passed the Assembly and the Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee, and will probably receive a vote in the Senate in two days.

In 1986 a U.S. District Court struck down Nevada’s old April petition deadline for new parties. That case was Libertarian Party of Nevada v Swackhamer, 638 F.Supp. 565. At the time, Nevada required newly-qualifying parties to nominate by primary. Ever since 1987, Nevada has provided that newly-qualifying parties nominate by convention, so moving the petition deadline back to April is supremely irrational. The bill says the deadline to turn the signatures in to the Secretary of State will be in May. However, another law, not being amended by AB 81, says that the true deadine is 25 working days before deadline for the Secretary of State to receive the signatures, so the effective deadline imposed by the bill is April. Thanks to Janine Hansen for this news.