On March 15, the 9th circuit heard oral arguments in Dudum v City and County of San Francisco. This is a federal case, filed in 2010 by opponents of San Francisco’s version of Instant-Runoff Voting. Because the San Francisco vote-counting equipment is not as flexible as it might be, San Francisco’s system limits voters to a first choice, second choice, and third choice, when they vote for city officials. Opponents of IRV filed the lawsuit, arguing that the limit on the number of choices is unconstitutional. This San Francisco Chronicle article says that the three judges seemed skeptical of that argument. The IRV opponents lost this case in U.S. District Court.

The three judges on the case are Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon, Clinton appointees, and Carlos Bea, a Bush Jr. appointee. All three judges are Californians. The law firm representing the opponents of IRV is the same law firm that represents former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, in the two lawsuits currently challenging certain aspects of California’s top-two system. This is ironic, because according to the newspaper story, this law firm in Dudum v City and County of San Francisco is emphasizing that the U.S. Constitution requires that all votes be counted. And yet in the two pending cases against certain aspects of Proposition 14, the same law firm is arguing that it is constitutional to provide write-in space on ballots and yet not only not count write-ins, but not even count how many write-ins were cast. Under California’s Proposition 14, a write-in winner could win in November and even then those write-ins would not be counted. UPDATE: here is another newspaper story about the hearing.

On March 15, the California Assembly Elections Committee passed AB 80 unanimously. It moves the presidential primary from February to June. Because the primary for office other than President is already in June, combining the presidential primary with the non-presidential primary to a single date will save almost $100,000,000.

Also on March 15, the California Senate Elections Committee passed SB 205 by a vote of 3-2. It outlaws paying anyone who goes out in public and asks voters to change their registration from one party to another, if the payment is based on a per-registration basis. The payment may not be on a per-registration basis “directly or indirectly”, which seems to say that if someone hires someone else to obtain voter registration changes, the payer can’t even give a bonus for high-performance workers. This bill will make it far more difficult for parties to maintain their place on the ballot, or to qualify for the ballot. The only procedure remaining in California for a party to be ballot-qualified is to have at least 103,004 registered members. The Libertarian Party needs another 11,000 registrants, and the Peace & Freedom Party needs another 45,000 registrants, although not until 2014. Making it illegal for these parties to hire “salespeople” to get them more registrants will hamper these registration drives, if the parties can’t pay the workers on a per-registrant basis.

Dave Kadlecek of the Peace & Freedom Party, and Richard Winger (the person writing this post) testified against the bill. Winger testified that the bill should be amended, to no longer define “political party” by how many registered voters it has. However, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Lou Correa, chair of the Committee, seemed uninterested in that proposal. The two Republicans on the Senate Elections Committee, Doug LaMalfa and Ted Gaines, expressed sympathy for minor parties and voted against the bill.

Finally, the California Senate Elections Committee passed SB 168 on a 3-2 vote, with the three Democrats voting in favor. This bill makes it illegal to pay petition circulators on a per-signature basis. However, Senator Ted Lieu stated that although he would vote for the bill in Committee, that he had serious doubts about the bill and that he likely would oppose it on the Senate floor.

On March 14, Coconino County settled a lawsuit that had been filed in October 2010, by a voter who wasn’t permitted to vote at the polls because she was wearing a T-shirt that included a depiction of the American flag, “We the People” script from the Constitution, and the phrase “Flagstaff Tea Party – Reclaiming our Constitution Now.”

Polling place officials felt the T-shirt was illegal “electioneering”, but of course there was no ballot-listed Tea Party on the ballot in Arizona. The voter won injunctive relief last year and now Coconino County has agreed to interpret the electioneering law to include only clothing that refers to a candidate or a party that is actually listed on the ballot. The case had been Wickberg v Owens, cv10-8177-PHX, in U.S. District Court. The county also had to pay $46,000 in attorneys’ fees. See this story.