On March 14, Americans Elect started its Texas petition drive, according to this press release. Texas had been the only state which has a party-petition procedure that Americans Elect had not yet started. A “party-petition procedure” is a petition that does not list any candidates; it just mentions the name of the party and asks voters to sign the petition to put that party on the ballot.

The only remaining places in which Americans Elect has apparently not started petitioning yet are Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia. Also Americans Elect hasn’t started its registration drive in Delaware. No petitioning is needed in Louisiana because a presidential nominee of an unqualified party can qualify as late as September, and have the party name on the ballot, with a filing fee of $500. Generally, the states in which Americans Elect isn’t petitioning yet are states that require a presidential candidate’s name on the ballot. Sometimes stand-ins are permitted. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

On March 14, the Maine House passed LD 1774 on a preliminary vote. This is the bill to conform the state’s public funding program (for candidates for state office) to the U.S. Supreme Court decision from Arizona last year. That decision said public funding programs can’t give extra public funds to certain candidates. See this story.

Maine supporters of public funding don’t like LD 1774 (even though the bill saves the system from being completely invalidated), and may propose an alternate solution via referendum.

On March 15, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the certification of the November 2010 election returns for the Secretary of State race. Here is the 20-page decision in White v Indiana Democratic Party, 49S00-1202. White, the Republican nominee, had easily won that election, but later is was determined that he was not validly registered to vote when he was nominated. He has already been convicted of several felonies for voting at a location in which he did not live.

The Indiana Supreme Court determined that notwithstanding White’s voter registration problem, he was validly elected. The decision says that the Indiana Constitution’s provision that elections shall be “free and equal” means that the will of the voters should not lightly be set aside. Furthermore, it says if the Democratic Party wanted to challenge White’s qualifications, it should have done so before the election. It acknowledges that it might not have been easy for the party to know about the voter registration problem, but concludes “The Code places a burden on political campaigns to investigate and vet their opposition before the pre-election time limitations expire.”

Justice Brent Dickson did not sign the majority opinion. He agrees that the election returns are valid, and that White was elected, but his basis is that the Indiana Constitution sets forth the constitutional qualifications for Secretary of State, and they do not list being a registered voter as a qualification. Although he did not say so, his approach is consistent with decisions of the 9th circuit, and the 10th circuit, that states may not require congressional candidates to be registered voters. Those two cases were from California and Colorado. Both states asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn those cases, but the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the state appeals. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.