The Virginia House Privileges and Elections Committee has passed SB 624, which now says no one (except election administrators) may have access to the list of which voters voted in the last primary or the last election. The bill is on second reading in the House.

This bill started out in the Senate doing almost the exact opposite. The original bill expanded the list of groups that may see this list, to include groups that encourage voter participation. The existing law says that parties, candidates, and political committees may see the list. A group that wanted to use the list to encourage voter participation had sued the state, saying if parties, candidates, and political committees may see the list, there is no state interest in preventing it from seeing the list also. The somewhat ironic conclusion is that now no groups will be able to see the list, if the bill as currently amended becomes law.

The Nebraska bill to end the practice of letting each U.S. House district choose its own presidential elector, LB 777, has been indefinitely postponed. That almost certainly means the author has given up on moving it ahead this year.

Nebraska and Maine are the only states that let each U.S. House district choose its own presidential elector.

On Wednesday, the New Hampshire House expects to take up HB 1188, which cuts the number of signatures required for independent candidates down to only two-thirds of the existing requirements. For example, the statewide requirement would drop from 3,000 to 2,000. The bill also lowers the petition to create a new ballot-qualified party from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1.5% of the number of registered voters, which is a modest improvement in midterm years, although not much of an improvement in presidential years.

Petitioning is more difficult in New Hampshire than in any other state. New Hampshire is the only state that limits a petition sheet to just one voter. Each sheet has many blanks that must be filled out, which increases the workload. Also it isn’t easy for a petitioner to keep possession of so many separate pieces of paper. Also, New Hampshire is one of only eight states that has a distribution requirement for statewide petitions. Partly because of these details, the Green Party has never been on the ballot for a statewide candidate in New Hampshire, except for President in 2000.

New Hampshire only required 1,000 signatures for statewide petitions, and had no distribution requirement, until the 1980’s.

The House will also be voting on HB 1264, which authorizes interim study on what the requirements should be for petitions to create a new ballot-qualified party. That is expected to pass easily. HB 1188 only passed the Election Law Committee on an 8-6 vote, so the House vote is somewhat difficult to predict.