On June 8, the New Hampshire legislature refused to pass SB 193, even though for a while it appeared that the bill would pass. It would have provided that the petition to qualify a new political party contain language telling potential signers that if they signed the petition, and if the petition succeeded in getting enough valid signatures, all the signers would automatically be converted to being registered members of that party.

Similar laws have been held unconstitutional in nine other states. Courts have stressed that voters have a right to support putting a party on the ballot without having to say that they are members, or that they themselves are organizing the new party, or that they should automatically be considered members. When these nine court precedents were pointed out to the bill’s sponsors, certain other legislators proposed that the bill be amended to say that the petition form should carry a checkbox, asking each signer if he or she wants to be treated as a member of that new party, but also making it clear that voters could sign the petition and yet not be forced into becoming a registered member of that party.

However, some influential members of the Election Law Committee then said that they were not interested in making the choice voluntary, and refused to amend the bill, so it died. Thanks to Representative Seth Cohn for this news. Cohn proposed making the bill voluntary instead of mandatory. He intends to introduce a superior bill in 2012, which will ease the petition burden. For 2012, the petition to create a new party requires 13,698 valid signatures. The procedure to create a new party has existed since 1996, and it is so difficult, it has only been used once, in 2000, by the Libertarian Party.

On June 7, the New York State Senate passed S709, which proposes a change to the New York State Constitution. It would create the initiative process in New York, for statewide laws, and also for local government. The vote was 47-15. All of the “no” votes were Democrats.

Now the bill goes to the Assembly. If it passes there, because it is a proposed constitutional change, it must pass both houses of the legislature again in 2013. Then the voters would decide in November 2014 whether to pass the idea.

The statewide initiative is a gateway for virtually any election law reform that has popular support. If New York state had the initiative process, the voters could probably qualify a proposed initiative for redistricting reform, or ballot access reform, or reform of the restrictive laws that don’t permit voters to switch parties before a primary unless they make the switch during the year before the election. It will be interesting to see if Independent Voting, formerly known as the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, and before that the New Alliance Party, will support S709. That group is very well organized in New York city. Virtually all the “no” votes in the Senate were New York city Senators.

The bill would require a statewide initiative to obtain a number of signatures equal to 5% of the last vote for Governor. Currently that number is 232,709. Thanks to Paul Jacob for this news.

On June 8, the Maine legislature defeated LD 545, which would have made it easier for a member of a small qualified party to get on his or her party’s primary ballot. The bill had passed the House on second reading on June 7, but on the same day the Senate had voted against it. On June 8 the House acceded to the Senate’s wishes and the bill died.

A member of any qualified party running for statewide office in Maine needs 2,000 signatures of party members. Registered independents can’t sign. The law does not take into account the fact that some qualified parties have hundreds of thousands of members, whereas other qualified parties are much smaller. The bill would have provided that a member of a small qualified party needs 750 signatures instead of 2,000.