On July 22, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongowski signed SB 326, the bill that eliminates the “primary screenout” for independent candidate petitions, and also legalizes fusion. This is not really news, because the Governor said on July 9 that he would sign the bill. Still, it prompted this news story. UPDATE: actually the bill was signed on the afternoon of July 23, not July 22.
During the last nine days, several election law bills of interest have added new co-sponsors.
HR1826, public funding for congressional candidates, added 7 co-sponsors and now has 64.
HR3025, to require states to use bipartisan commissions to draw U.S. House district boundaries, added 6 co-sponsors and now has 20.
HR2894, to require states to use only vote-counting machines with a paper trail, added one co-sponsor and now has 82.
HR2499, for a popular vote on Puerto Rico’s political status, added 5 co-sponsors and now has 161.
The July 21 issue of New Jersey Newsroom has this op-ed by Chris Daggett, a former state official of New Jersey who is an independent candidate for Governor this year. Daggett makes the case for his own candidacy, including the idea that major party nominees invariably serve their own party’s interest instead of the public interest. Thanks to The Hankster for the link. UPDATE: Daggett qualified for public funding earlier this month. See this story.
New Jersey Newsroom was founded earlier this year by 40 leading journalists, most of whom had been working for the Newark Star-Ledger. New Jersey Newsroom is strictly an on-line newspaper.
On July 21, the Arizona State Court of Appeals ruled that a trial should be held in Chavez v Brewer, 1 CA-cv-06-0575. The issue is whether the state’s electronic vote-counting machines produce accurate results. The lower court had refused to permit evidence-gathering. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this news. The 29-page decision is here.
Filing for Minneapolis city elections closed on July 21. The city is using Instant-Runoff Voting for the first time this year. The election is November 3. There will be no September primary, as there always has been in the past. See this list of candidates and their party labels. Parties don’t nominate candidates in these elections, and the candidates choose their own labels. UPDATE: here is the city elections web page, which seems to show that anyone can get on the ballot for any city office by paying a fee of $20, with no petition needed. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
Labels include Independence, Green, Libertarian, Socialist Workers, Socialist Action, Progressive, in addition to Democratic-Farmer-Labor and Republican.
