The 3-judge U.S. District Court in San Antonio (the court handling the Texas redistricting case) is in session at the moment this blog post is being written. According to Texas Redistricting Blog, which has reporters in the courtroom, one of the three judges has just said that it is very likely that the primary will be May 29. I am about to leave the house for a few hours so anyone who wants to check news.google to see if this date becomes final should do so.
On February 14, the Alabama Senate Constitution, Campaign Finance, Ethics & Elections Committee passed SB 15 by a vote of 5-0. This bill lowers the number of signatures for a statewide party to 5,000 signatures. For parties that are only trying to get on the ballot in part of the state, the bill lowers that petition requirement from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote within that district, to 1.5%, but with a cap at 5,000. The bill also lowers the petition requirement for independent candidates. Thanks to Josh Cassidy for this news.
Both the Justice Party, and the Green Party, are about to submit their petition for party status in Utah on the afternoon of February 15, Wednesday. The Greens have approximately 3,000 signatures. The Justice Party has 3,048. Today is the deadline.
The law requires 2,000 valid signatures. Parties already on the Utah ballot, besides Democratic and Republican, are Americans Elect, Constitution, and Libertarian.
On February 8, the Missouri House passed HB 1036 with only one “no” vote. The bill eliminates party logos from the November ballot. A “logo” is a cartoon-like emblem of a political party. County election officials requested this bill. They say that some voters think that the logo is a straight-ticket device. These voters draw a circle around the logo and then don’t vote for any candidates. Evidently they think that the logo is a straight-ticket device and that they have voted for all the nominees of their preferred party.
The February 15 New York Daily News has this “gossip” column, mentioning that Tom Golisano has been suggested as a possible Americans Elect presidential nominee. Golisano was the Independence Party’s nominee for Governor of New York in 1994, 1998, and 2002. Each time he ran, he polled a higher share of the vote. In 2002 he polled 14.28%.
