Carl Romanelli, the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2006, has this op-ed in the Citizens Voice of March 6. The Citizens Voice is the daily newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylania. The op-ed points out that U.S. Senator Robert Casey of Pennsylvania has criticized Iran for violating free and fair elections, but that Pennsylvania election procedures are also lacking.
On March 10, at 9 a.m., a California Superior Court in Sacramento will hear arguments in Fuller v Bowen, 34-2010-80000452. This is the case on whether the California Constitution’s provision, requiring candidates for the legislature to have lived in the district at least one year before the election, is still valid under the U.S. Constitution. The case was filed by a Republican candidate for State Senate, to prevent the Secretary of State from certifying one of her opponents for the June 2010 primary ballot, on the grounds that the opponent moved into the district in December 2009, less than a year before the 2010 election. The candidate who filed the case is Heidi Fuller; the opponent is Assemblymember Tom Berryhill.
Another California election law case will be heard on March 12, Friday, at 1:30 pm, also in Sacramento Superior Court. That case is Clark v Bowen, 34-2010-80000460, over how Proposition 14, the “top-two open primary” measure, should be described on the June 2010 ballot. Here is the plaintiff’s brief.
At the Texas Democratic primary on March 2, the Victoria County Clerk, Val D. Huvar, was defeated for re-election. He had just turned 90 years old the day before the primary. He has been clerk for 55 years. See this story.
Various West Virginia election law bills all failed to pass by the March 3 deadline. Bills that didn’t pass out of their house of origin by that date cannot pass this year. One bill that failed to advance in time is HB 4137, which would have altered the order of political parties on the general election ballot. Existing law says the party that carried the state for president in the last election gets the top line, or the column on the far left. The bill would have changed that, so that the party with the most registered voters gets the best spot. Although it passed the House Judiciary Committee, it never got a vote on the House floor.
The ten sponsors of the bill are all Democrats. The Republican slate of presidential elector candidates has won in West Virginia for each of the last three elections. But Democrats have almost twice as many registered voters as Republicans. A better bill would have been one to provide for either rotation of party columns, or a random selection procedure to determine order of parties.
Other election law bills that failed to pass are: SB 334 and HB 2657, which would have required declared write-in candidates to pay a partial filing fee; HB 2974, which would have abolished the straight-ticket device; and HB 2052, which would have kept candidates off the ballot if they were ever convicted of a felony. The latter bill, if enacted, would have been unconstitutional as to federal candidates.
The Indianapolis Star has this article, describing the oral argument in the Indiana Supreme Court on March 4 in League of Women Voters of Indiana v Rokita. Thanks to How Appealing for the link. The outcome seems difficult to predict.
