On April 18, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed HB 2177, the bill that required political parties to furnish a birth certificate for their presidential nominees. See this story. The bill had been sent to her on Friday, April 15. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the news.
According to this story, former Philadelphia Mayor John Street has changed his voter registration from “Democratic” to “independent.”
Louisiana Representative Rick Gallot (D-Grambling) has introduced HB 533. This is the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill. Among other things, it would remove the names of candidates for presidential elector from the November ballot. Louisiana currently is one of six states that still prints the names of candidates for presidential elector on ballots. The other states are Arizona, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, and Oklahoma.
Printing the names of presidential elector candidates on the ballots doesn’t give voters any additional choices. No state lets voters vote for individual candidates for presidential elector. Also, printing their names on the ballot takes up space on the ballot. Obviously the more populous a state is, and the more presidential electors it has, the more ballot space is needed. Louisiana has 9 presidential electors, and the 2008 ballot had nine presidential tickets on the ballot, so the ballot had to bear the names of 81 candidates for presidential elector. Thanks to Randall Hayes for this news.
On April 18, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer signed SB 194. This is the bill to require parties, and independent presidential candidates, to submit twice as many candidates for presidential elector as the state has seats in the electoral college. Half the presidential elector candidates are designated as alternates. If that presidential elector ticket carries the state, and one of the presidential electors votes in December for someone else for President, he or she is deemed to have resigned and to have been replaced by an alternate.
The Commission on Uniform State Laws has been urging all states to pass this idea, but it seems likely that Montana will be the only state to pass it during 2011.
On April 15, the Washington State House Ways & Means Committee passed SB 5119. This is the bill that eliminates the presidential primary in 2012. The bill had already passed the Senate. The major parties would rather use caucuses to choose delegates to the national conventions anyway.
If this bill is signed into law, there will be no Washington state elections for Precinct Committee Officer. Precinct Committee Officer (“PCO”), is a political party office. Earlier this year a U.S. District Court Judge ruled that it unconstitutional to hold elections for party office in the general election, or the top-two primary election either, so the only remaining way to elect this office had been at a presidential primary. But if there is no presidential primary, there won’t be a publicly-funded election for this party office.
