On March 11, the Idaho House defeated HJR 4, which would have amended the state Constitution to ban ranked choice voting. Although it got a majority, it needed two-thirds. The vote was 42-27.
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On February 29, the Arizona House passed HB 2474. It says that a petition to recognize a new party must be completed within two years, and also requires petitioners for that type of petition to register with the Secretary of State.
The Arizona Secretary of State has issued a new registration tally. See it here. No Labels Party registration continues to climb, and the party now has enough registered voters to maintain its qualified status, regardless of whether it receives any particular vote, or even if it doesn’t run any candidates in 2024. The law requires two-thirds of 1% of the state registration total for a party to remain on the ballot (as an alternative to a vote test) and No Labels now has enough members. Thanks to Richard Grayson for this news.
Here is a link to the bill, SF4729. Scroll down to Sec. 7 for its impact on Major Party Status for political parties in Minnesota.
In the 2020 General Election, Kevin O’Connor, the Legal Marijuana Now (LMN) Party candidate for US Senator, receiving 190,154 votes, which was 5.92% of the vote. Because of that, the LMN Party is qualified as a Major Party in Minnesota through the 2024 General Election. This bill is designed to take from the LMN its legitimately earned Major Party status.
The effective date of the proposed change in the bill is August 1, 2024. Because this is in the middle of the election and petitioning season, that effective date is likely unconstitutional.
There must have been an error in the law before the current attempt to amend it, as the date of the 2024 General Election is November 5, not November 7.
James A. “Jim” Hedges died March 4, 2024, at the age of 85. Here is an obituary. He was the editor of the Prohibition Party’s quarterly newsletter, “The National Prohibitionist” for decades. He was also elected Township Auditor several times as a Prohibition Party nominee, becoming the only person to win partisan office in his party in many decades.
He was also the Prohibition Party nominee for president in 2016, and he polled 5,617 votes, the highest presidential vote total for the party since 1988, when Earl Dodge had polled 8,002. In Arkansas County, Arkansas, Hedges placed third, with 133 votes (2.14%), ahead of Gary Johnson (the Libertarian nominee, who placed third nationally). Hedges was also the Prohibition Party representative to the board of the Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE). He was well-informed about ballot access laws. It is probably no exaggeration to say that if he had never lived, the Prohibition Party would no longer exist.