On June 14, 2010, the national convention of the League of Women Voters, meeting in Atlanta, endorsed the National Popular Vote Plan. The plan, if implemented, would result in the election of the presidential candidate who had received the most popular votes in the entire nation.
Rhode Island bill H7894 is now law. The Governor declined to either sign it or veto it, so it becomes law without his signature. It tells towns and cities in Rhode Island that they must let voters sign as many petitions for competing candidates as they wish.
The new law will settle two pending federal lawsuits, one against the town of Central Falls, and the other against the town of East Providence. The lawsuit in Central Falls had already been won in U.S. District Court, and Central Falls had appealed to the First Circuit. The lawsuit in East Providence had not yet had a decision in any court.
Rhode Island election law, for candidates for federal and state office, already let voters sign for multiple competing candidates for the same office. But now that rule applies to all city and town elections as well.
On June 30, a state court in Georgia held a hearing in Norwood v Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, the case over whether signatures are valid if the candidate pre-prints the name of the county on each line of the petition form, instead of requiring each signer to write in the county name along with the signer’s name and address. See this story. The judge indicated a decision is likely by July 2.
A side issue in the case is that the candidate, Mary Norwood, an independent running for Chair of the Fulton County Commission, was told in writing that her petition sheets, with the county pre-printed, were acceptable. After she had 9,000 signatures on those forms, she was told that they are not valid. She needs approximately 22,000 valid by July 13.
The Hartford Courant has this story on Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz’s response to a Green Party press release that criticized her. Bysiewicz says that she favors equal treatment for minor party candidates, and particularly equal treatment for public funding.
Candidate filing for Rhode Island closed on June 30. Although independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, do not need to submit petitions until July 22, the law requires them to file a declaration of candidacy by June 30. Five independents filed for the U.S. House, First District. Two filed for the U.S. House, Second District. Each will need 500 valid signatures. Rhode Island does not have a U.S. Senate election this year.
Independents in Rhode Island, and in about half the states, are permitted to choose a partisan label to be printed on the ballot next to their names, as long as it does not mimic the name of a qualified party. All of the independents in Rhode Island this year chose the label “independent”, except that one chose “Legalize Freedom”, and one chose “Robot Skeleton.”
Rhode Island has three qualified parties, Democratic, Republican, and Moderate. No one filed in the Moderate Party primary for Congress. However, the Moderate Party has candidates in its primary for Governor, Attorney General, two State Senate seats, three State House seats, and partisan city offices in Bristol and Cranston.
