On March 16, the California State Court of Appeals changed the wording somewhat for the ballot description, and the ballot pamphlet description, of Proposition 14. The Court deleted the word “reform” and substituted “change”. Also, the Court deleted the fiscal impact statement that it isn’t possible to know whether the proposition will increase the costs of election administration. It restored the Legislative Analyst’s original opinion that the Proposition would not significantly increase costs to administer elections.

The new language on the ballot will be, “Elections. Increases Right to Participate in Primary Elections. Changes the primary election process for congressional, statewide, and legislative races. Allows all voters to choose any candidate regardless of the candidate’s or voter’s political party preference. Ensures that the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes will appear on the general election ballot regardless of party preference. Fiscal Impact: No significant net change in state and local government costs to administer elections.”

The Court said it was replacing “reform” with “change” because “There appears to us little doubt that inclusion of the word ‘reform’ is misleading insofar as it reflects an inherent value judgment that there is a need for ‘reform’ of the existing electoral process.”

The ballot pamphlet (but not the ballot) will include five bullet points:

1. Encourages increased participation in elections for congressional, legislative, and statewide offices by changing the procedure by which candidates are selected in primary elections.
2. Gives voters increased options in the primary by allowing all voters to choose any candidate regardless of the candidate’s or voter’s political party preference.
3. Provides that candidates may choose not to have a political party preference indicated on the primary ballot.
4. Provides that only the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes in the primary will appear on the general election ballot regardless of party preference.
5. Does not change primary elections for President, party committee offices and nonpartisan offices.

On March 15, several groups that desire to qualify initiatives for the ballot filed a lawsuit against several Colorado laws. The lawsuit attacks the requirement that initiative circulators live in Colorado. It also attacks a Colorado law that says circulators must attend a training class, and still another law that at least 80% of any pay to a circulator must not be connected to how many signatures the circulator obtains.

The case is Independence Institute v Buescher. Thanks to Paul Jacob for the news.

Illinois HB 6214 lowers the number of signatures for independent candidates. On March 15, the House Executive Committee sent it to the Rules Committee. It had already been in the Rules Committee once before, and then it had gone to the Executive Committee. If the Executive Committee had wanted the bill to advance, it would have sent it to the Elections and Campaign Reform Committee. But the Executive Committee didn’t want the bill to advance.