On March 24, the District of Columbia Board of Elections said it will no longer use vote-counting machines that have no paper trail. Instead, it will use iVotronic vote-counting machines, which do create a paper trail. The switch will be in time for this year’s primary. See this story.
On March 24, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Robert Waters should be restored to the Libertarian Party’s primary ballot. He is a candidate for the party’s nomination for State Representative, 67th district.
The Warren County Board of Elections had disqualified him because his petition to get on the primary ballot failed to fill in the blank, asking for the date of the primary election. However, his petition did carry the information that the office he is seeking has a term that begins in January 2011. The case is State ex rel Eshleman v Fornshell, 2010-0438. The Court said, “No vital public purpose or public interest is served by rejecting his petition.”
On March 24, the California Secretary of State announced that the initiative to legalize marijuana has qualified for the November ballot. The Attorney General says the title will be “Changes California Law to Legalize Marijuana and Allow it to be Regulated and Taxed.”
This is the first initiative that has qualified for the California November ballot, although there is already a statewide measure concerning water that the legislature put on the November ballot. Other initiatives must qualify no later than June 24.
Jerry Brown, who inevitably will be the Democratic Party nominee, has already said publicly that he is opposed to this initiative. Presumably the Republican nominee (likely to be Meg Whitman) will also declare her opposition. If “top-two” were already the law in California, these two candidates would be the only two individuals on the ballot in November for Governor, and no write-ins would be counted. Thus Californians would not be able to vote in November for any gubernatorial candidate who favors this initiative.
On March 24, a U.S. District Court in Eugene, Oregon, upheld Oregon laws that require initiative circulators who are being paid to complete a class about petitioning rules. The decision also upholds a ban on anyone working as a paid circulator who has ever been convicted of fraud, forgery or identity theft. Finally, the decision upholds a law requiring an organization that pays circulators to produce payroll records. The case is Walker v State of Oregon and Kate Brown, 08-06135. Here is the 29-page decision.
On March 24, a hearing on procedural motions was held in U.S. District Court in Riddle v Secretary of State, the case over Colorado’s law that bars independent candidates (for office other than President) if they had been registered into a qualified party at any time during the year before filing. Both sides agreed to expedite the case. All briefs will be submitted on or before April 2.
In the meantime, the legislature is also considering a bill to ease the restriction. HB 1271 has already passed the House and has a Senate committee hearing on March 29.
