On April 15, an attorney for the Maryland State Board of Elections said the Board will re-examine the petitions submitted last month by the Green Party and the Libertarian Party. The Board had said both petitions lacked enough valid signatures, and so the parties filed a lawsuit on April 11, arguing that the Board was disqualifying signatures that really are valid. See this story.
Wyoming lets a petition to recognize a new party start circulating on April 1 of the odd year before the election. The petition is due on June 1 of the election year, so the state allows 14 months. The Constitution Party has never before qualified as a party in Wyoming, but it is determined to be on in 2012, and started on the first possible date. It now has 200 signatures toward the requirement of 3,734 valid signatures.
On April 15, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell vetoed the bill that draws new legislative districts. See this story. Because Virginia has its state elections in odd years, this creates a problem for candidates planning to run for the legislature this year.
On April 13, the Oklahoma House Rules Committee completely revamped SB 602, which had already passed the Senate. The original bill moved the primary from July to June, and moved the petition deadline for new parties from May 1 to March 1.
As amended, the bill moves the primary from July to the last Tuesday in August. It also eliminates the runoff primary. It is likely that the motivation for the amendment is concern that the original bill, setting the new party petition so early, would cause the state’s procedure for new parties to get on the ballot to be held unconstitutional.
The part of the bill abolishing the runoff primary would be a dramatic change for Oklahoma, which has had runoff primaries ever since 1946. State legislators for decades have resisted the idea of a abolishing the run-off primary. But, faced with a choice between eliminating the runoff primary, or putting the state in peril of having its ballot access law declared unconstitutional, the Rules Committee made the former choice. It will be interesting to see how the full House, and the Senate, feel about abolishing the runoff. Oklahoma must do something different because the federal law, requiring that overseas absentee ballots be mailed at least 45 days before an election, makes the existing system unworkable.
One would think that because the bill moves the primary to late August, the bill would also move the deadline for a new party to get on the ballot from May 1 to May 31, but the bill does not do that. If this bill passes, it it somewhat plausible that the May 1 petition deadline would be held unconstitutional. Before 2003, Oklahoma primaries were in late August and the new party petition deadline was May 31. Because this bill proposes returning to a late August primary, one wonders why the bill doesn’t also return the petition deadline to May 31. Ever since the deadline has been May 1, no new party petition has succeeded in Oklahoma.
Like several other bills pending in the Oklahoma legislature, this bill moves the presidential primary from February to March. The date of the presidential primary has no impact on petition deadlines. Oklahoma has never required a new party to participate in a presidential primary.
The Oklahoman, the state’s largest newspaper, had editorialized on April 12 that the run-off primary should be eliminated.
On April 14, the Nevada Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill, AB 81, passed the Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee. However, the bill was amended so that it doesn’t injure ballot access. The bill no longer raises filing fees. Also, the bill no longer moves the petition deadline for new parties from May to April. The bill now goes to the Senate.
