Michigan Democratic and Republican Legislative Leaders Favor Keeping Presidential Primary in February

Posted on by March 5, 2011
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According to this story in the Detroit News, leaders of both the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party, say they favor keeping Michigan’s presidential primary in February. If the legislature does nothing, the 2012 presidential primaries will be on February 28, 2012. This violates the national party rules, which only allow Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, to choose delegates to national conventions that early.

Michigan is one of the few states in which influential major party politicians, for years, have been saying that it is not fair to allow just four particular states to always go first.

Congressman John Conyers Introduces Bill on Voting Procedures

Posted on by March 4, 2011
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Earlier this year, Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan) introduced HR 108. All of these points only relate to federal elections. The bill would outlaw vote-counting machines that have no audit trail; it would provide that provisional ballots are not invalid just because they were cast in the wrong precinct; it would require all states to permit election-day registration; and it would require all states to permit early voting, in the period starting 15 days before election day. Thanks to Election Administration Reports for this news. So far, the bill has no co-sponsors.

NAACP Sues Twelve Mississippi Counties for a Later Filing Deadline for County Office Candidates

Posted on by March 4, 2011
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On February 28, local branches of the NAACP filed lawsuits against twelve Mississippi counties in federal court, seeking a court order to require the counties to move the candidate filing deadline from March 1 to June 1, for this year only, for candidates for county office only. The filing deadline this year for candidates for the state legislature is already June 1, although candidates for statewide office faced a filing deadline of March 1.

The census data from the 2010 census was delivered to Mississippi last month, and the counties will be redrawing their county supervisor district boundaries. The lawsuits argue that it isn’t feasible for candidates to file, before the district boundaries are known. However, it appears at least one of the counties has already redrawn its districts, but is waiting for the U.S. Justice Department to approve those new boundaries. One of the cases, in the northern district, is Winston County NAACP v Winston County Board of Supervisors, 1:11-cv-059. Thanks to Steve Rankin for this news.

If it is feasible for the filing deadlines in 2011 for some office to be on June 1, one wonders why the state legislature didn’t provide that all candidates have a June 1 deadline this year. The primary is in August.

U.S. District Court Hears Libertarian Case on Counting Write-in Votes for Bob Barr in District of Columbia

Posted on by March 4, 2011
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On March 4, a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., heard one hour and forty minutes of oral argument in Libertarian Party v District of Columbia Board of Elections, 09-cv-1676. The case had been filed in 2009, after it became apparent that the District of Columbia Board of Elections would not tally the number of write-in votes cast for Bob Barr in the November 2008 election. Barr was a declared write-in presidential candidate, and had filed a slate of candidates for presidential elector, in accordance with the Board’s own procedures for write-in presidential candidates. Barr was the only declared write-in presidential candidate in the District in 2008.

Attorneys for the Board suggested that it would be very difficult to count the write-ins. But, they also said that if Barr and the Libertarian Party wanted to know how many write-ins Barr got, the party could have filed a Freedom of Information Act request, or else could have requested and paid for a recount. The latter ideas seems to counter their first argument. During the course of the argument, the famous U.S. Supreme Court opinion Bush v Gore was mentioned. Bush v Gore said that the Constitution requires elections officials to treat all voters equally.