On April 7, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez signed SB 403, which makes some ballot access improvements: (1) it lowers the number of signatures to qualify a new party in gubernatorial years; (2) it moves the independent candidate petition deadline from early June to late June; (3) it says that the petition to create a new party is available any time.
An Arizona Senate Committee earlier this year had killed a bill, SB 1526, to require presidential candidate birth certificates. However, another bill, which has already passed the House, has been amended to also require birth certificates for presidential candidates. That bill is HB 2177, which had started out as an education bill. It seems likely to pass the House. The Arizona legislature will only be in session for a few more weeks.
Several states held non-partisan elections on April 5. Five Libertarians were elected or re-elected to local office.
Andrew Gray, the Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate in 2010, was elected to the Topeka, Kansas city council from the 8th district. He polled 988 votes, and the incumbent, his only opponent, polled 594 votes. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.
Doug Burlison was re-elected to the Springfield, Missouri city council, winning with 62.4% of the vote.
Three Illinois Libertarians were elected: Steve Hellin to a School Board, Karin Vermillion to a Library Board, and Doug Marks to the Carpentersville Trustee Board. Thanks to commenter #1 who helped expand the information in this post.
On April 6, Idaho HB 351 passed both houses of the legislature. It lets parties decide for themselves whether to let all voters vote in their primary, or just independents plus party members, or just party members. The bill also sets up a system whereby voters can register as a member of a party, either on voter registration forms or at the May 2012 primary voting location.
The vote in the House was 51-16; the vote in the Senate was 28-7.
On April 7, the Oklahoma House Rules Committee passed SB 808. This is the bill that moves the Oklahoma presidential primary from February to March. It had already passed the Senate. The Oklahoma presidential primary is separate from the state’s primary for other office, and the dates of the Oklahoma presidential primary have no bearing on deadlines to put new parties or independent presidential candidate on the November ballot.
