Hawaii has the nation’s latest primary. This year it is set for September 18. But a new federal law requires states to mail out overseas absentee ballots no later than 45 days before the election. Because the Hawaii primary date is exactly 45 days before the general election, it is obviously impossible for Hawaii to comply with the new law. The general election ballots can’t be printed until the votes have counted in the primary.

Hawaii is in the process of asking for a waiver. This article explains the confusion that will result if the waiver is denied. HB 2397 is pending in the legislature to move the primary to August, but the bill provides that the new date wouldn’t go into effect until 2012.

Rand Paul, son of Congressman Ron Paul, is leading in polls for the Kentucky Republican Senate nomination, according to this story. Rand Paul, like his father, is a friend of the ballot access reform movement. He was active in 1988 when his father was the Libertarian Party nominee, and he is well-informed about unjust ballot access laws. Four states kept Paul off the ballot in 1988: Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, and West Virginia.

The Kentucky primary is on May 18.

The Election Law Journal is an eight-year old quarterly journal. All the articles are peer-reviewed, and the journal is the only scholarly publication that covers the entire spectrum of issues related to election law. It is found in university law libraries and university social science libraries. Anyone may subscribe, but it costs $771 per year.

The most recent issue contains a book review of Theresa Amato’s “Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny”, a 432-page book published last year. The review is by Professor Mark Rush, Professor of Politics and Law and head of the Department of Politics at Washington and Lee University. The review is very favorable to the book. Rush says, “Amato’s call for systemwide electoral reform is unassailable. The structures and the practices that characterize American elections are indefensible…It is clear that the American presidential election system would not survive the scrutiny of the electoral observers we send to other countries…Amato’s argument is powerful and eloquent.” The review concludes by saying that the book is a “piercing, thoughtful, well-written analysis of the contemporary American electoral process.”

Rush also adds, “Her account of Nader’s being shut out of presidential debates in Illinois, banned from the buildings in which they were taking place, and being threatened with arrest if he tried to attend the debate is truly amazing and frightening.”