The Concord, New Hampshire Monitor has this letter to the editor from a former resident of New Hampshire who now lives in Oregon, David Appell. The letter-writer scolds New Hampshire for its insistence on always holding the first presidential primary, and also for insisting that no caucus be held during the week after the New Hampshire primary. The responses to the letter, in the comments section, are interesting.
Alaska State Senator Bill Wielechowski (D-Anchorage) says he will introduce a bill to clarify which write-in votes are valid and which are not. See this story. One imagines that if Senator Wielechowski were ever to be a write-in candidate, he would not be comfortable with any law that requires write-in votes to be spelled perfectly.
Washington state representative Sam Hunt has introduced HB 1002, to require all counties in Washington state to use only mail ballots. Currently, all counties in the state except Pierce County vote entirely by mail. The bill would force Pierce County to give up its polling places. See this story. Currently, Oregon is the only state which uses only mail ballots.
On December 29, the U.S. Supreme Court again gave Illinois an extension of time in which to respond in Burris v Judge, 10-367. Illinois’ response was originally due on November 3, but the state had asked for an extension until January 7, 2011. That was granted, and now the state has been given another extension, to January 21.
Roland v Burris is the interesting case in which the lower courts said that the state should list on the November 2, 2010 ballot, for the special U.S. Senate election, only the names of candidates who had also qualified to be on the ballot for the U.S. Senate, regular term. U.S. Senator Roland Burris didn’t want to run in the election for the next 6-year term. But he did want to run in the special election for the two-month term. Yet, he was not permitted to do so.
The Maryland Green Party has 14,613 signatures on its petition to be on the ballot in 2012 and 2014. The Maryland Libertarian Party has 10,200 signatures on its petition. The requirement is 10,000. Both parties have rushed to finish these petitions, because if they submit at least 10,000 raw signatures by January 4, 2011, the state will let the voters who are registered in those parties continue to be registered that way. Otherwise, those voters will all be converted to independents, unless they choose another qualified party.
It is likely the Green Party already has enough signatures. The Libertarian Party will have three weeks after January 4, 2011, to make sure they have 10,000 valid signatures. The Constitution Party has also started its Maryland petition drive.
