Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle Political Writer, published this article on August 21, titled “State GOP May Restrict Primary to Party Members.” The article says that the state party convention on September 25-27 will consider changing the rule that now permits independent voters to vote for all public office (except president) in Republican primaries.

It is true that the idea of excluding independents is on the agenda, but the sponsor of the idea, Jon Fleischman, one of the 9 vice-chairs of the state party, has been introducing his idea at each of the preceding ten state conventions, and each time the party votes against the idea, and votes to continue letting independents vote. It is not likely that the Republican state convention in Indian Wells next month will exclude independent voters from the non-presidential Republican primaries.

On Monday, August 24, a Tulsa County District Court will hear Eagleton v City of Tulsa, cj2009-5920. The issue is whether an initiative petition is valid. The initiative would ask the voters if they wish to convert Tulsa city elections from partisan elections, to non-partisan elections.

The challenge to the validity of the petition consists of two issues: (1) whether the petition contained a clause warning voters against signing false signatures; (2) whether the petition needs 3,427 valid signatures, or 19,336 valid signatures. The petition has 6,675 valid signatures. The uncertainty over the required number depends on whether the “last preceding general election” is the April 2006 election, or the April 2008 election. The April 2008 election had a very low turnout. It was for city council districts in part of the city, plus it had citywide ballot questions. The challenger says the April 2008 election shouldn’t count, and the city should look back to the April 2006 election, when citywide offices (not just district offices) were on the ballot.

On August 20, a Commonwealth Court in Pennsylvania disqualified Wieslaw Niemoczynski from the November 3, 2009 ballot as an independent candidate for Monroe County Common Pleas Judge. However, the trial showed massive problems with the state’s list of registered voters, nicknamed SURE. The candidate may appeal. See this story.

The evidence showed that the candidate needed 250 signatures, submitted 331, but was determined to have only 197 valid. 52 signatures were disqualified because of address irregularities. For example, many signatures were collected in a housing development in which residents had been told to use their lot number as their street number, yet their signatures were disqualified because they followed those instructions, instead of using their actual street number (the street numbers are not physically visible on the houses or their curbs).