On March 29, the Hawaii Senate passed HB 2397 on second reading. The bill will get a third reading vote on March 31. Assuming it passes that as well, it must return to the House, because the Senate had amended it to provide that it take effect in 2011, not 2010.
Illinois HB 6000 would make ballot access considerably more difficult for the non-partisan post of Chicago Alderman. The House had set it for a second reading floor vote on March 25, but then it was removed from the calendar and sent back to the Rules Committee.
According to this news story, Ohio’s Secretary of State has promulgated a directive that requires voters who are voting in a different party’s primary this year, relative to 2008, to sign pledges of support for the party whose primary ballot that are requesting.
Ohio does not ask voters to choose a party, when they fill out a voter registration form. One would think that a state that does not have registration by party would be more relaxed about which party’s primary ballot a primary voter chooses.
Some years ago, a Democratic candidate for state court judge in Ohio sued, because she said elections officials were letting people who had voted in the Republican primary in the past choose a Democratic primary ballot currently. But, she lost. The Ohio courts said elections officials have no duty to try to stop voters from choosing a different party’s primary ballot. The Secretary of State’s directive can properly be criticized as changing the rules just before the upcoming May 2010 primary. Thanks to ThirdPartyDaily for the link.
California Courts are still working on adjudicating various complaints about the wording of statements about issues and candidates in the government-printed Voters Handbooks. On March 29, a Superior Court in Santa Clara County made changes to candidate statements. See this story, concerning the statements of a candidate for District Attorney.
The next step in the American Independent Party lawsuit over the identity of the actual state officers, King v Robinson, is that the Defendants will answer the Complaint on or before April 5, 2010. In a civil lawsuit, the “answer” is the initial response of the Defendants. Its purpose is for the Defendants to say whether they agree or disagree with the allegations contained in the Plaintiffs’ Complaint. The Complaint was filed over a year ago. UPDATE: an earlier version of this post said the answer is due April 25, but the commenter below is right and the answer is due April 5.
