Arcadia, California, holds an all-mail ballot for city office this month. The ballots are printed in several languages. The ballot is supposed to tell voters to vote for up to two candidates for city council. But the Mandarin directions on the ballot, intended to help voters who read Mandarin easier than English, says to vote for up to three candidates. The city will send a postcard to all voters, warning them of the error. See this story. Thanks to ElectionUpdates for the link.
The New York Times of April 6 has this fairly lengthy story about the Texas Green Party, and the Texas Libertarian Party. It was written by Ross Ramsey of the Texas Tribune. It is somewhat unusual for the New York Times to publish a story about either of these minor parties. The story seems factually accurate. Thanks to Jim Riley for the link.
On April 3, the Georgia legislature passed SB 92, which contains all the recommendations of the Georgia Secretary of State for election law improvement except for the suggested reduction in the number of signtures for independent and minor party candidates. As reported earlier, the legislature removed the ballot access improvements after the chair of the House Rules Committee said advocates for greater ballot access improvement had been rude to him, so he was removing those parts.
However, the bill as passed has two minor features that could result in more fairness. One provision says that when a candidate pays the filing fee after receiving misinformation from an election official, and he or she is kept off the ballot because of the misinformation, the fee can be refunded. The other provision permits candidates nominated by convention to file earlier in the year if they wish to. Minor parties that polled less than 20% of the vote in the last election, but more than 1% (of the number of registered voters) are permitted to nominate by convention, without the need for a petition, but only for statewide office. This is why Libertarians are always on the Georgia ballot for statewide office. The old law did not permit these convention nominations to be filed until the summer, but now they can be filed earlier if the minor party wishes to file earlier. Thanks to David Shock for this news.
On March 29, Heidi Fuller asked the California Supreme Court to hear her constitutional election law case. Here is the petition. The California Constitution, since 1879, has said no one can run for the legislature who has not lived in the district for a year before filing. However, since 1973, the California Secretary of State has not enforced this part of the Constitution. She says the California Constitution violates the U.S. Constitution.
However, federal case law on duration of residency requirements for candidates is virtually unanimous that these requirements do not violate the U.S. Constitution. Fuller meets the duration of residency requirement, but one of her opponents in 2010 did not. She sued to have the state Constitutional provision enforced. The Superior Court held that courts have jurisdiction for a lawsuit like this, but ruled that the California Constitution violates the U.S. Constitution. The State Court of Appeals held that courts cannot even hear a case like this, because only the legislature can decide if a candidate should be, or should have been, on a primary ballot to run for the legislature. The problem with this is that it would leave open no barrier to an underage candidate for the legislature to be on the ballot, or a candidate who does not even live in California. Fuller is asking the State Supreme Court to take this interesting case.
This article describes some small changes in Arizona’s program for public funding of candidates for public office. Opponents of public funding gave up their plan to ask voters to defund the program. In return, HB 2779 is likely to pass. It will end the tax credit for taxpayers who give donations to the program. Supporters of the public funding program say the fund doesn’t need that money anyway.
In other Arizona legislative news, on April 4, the Senate defeated HB 2826, which would have told all municipalities that they must hold their elections in even-numbered years. The bill had already passed the House. However, on April 5, the Senate agreed to reconsider the bill.
