On June 16, Washington, D.C. city councilmember Mary M. Cheh introduced a bill to let D.C. residents register to vote at the polls on election day. The bill won’t be assigned a number for several days.

The bill also authorizes the D.C. Board of Elections to impose “reasonable” filing fees on candidates for public office, and says the money will be used for election administration. If this part of the bill passes, it would be unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court said in both Bullock v Carter, and Lubin v Panish, that mandatory filing fees can only be imposed for the purpose of keeping ballots uncrowded. Since D.C. doesn’t have crowded ballots, and since the proposed fees would be in addition to rather severe petition requirements that already serve to keep the ballot uncrowded, the fees would not withstand court challenge. Also the bill doesn’t have any bypass for candidates who can’t afford the fees, and that is also unconstitutional.

On June 15, Krist Novoselic dropped out of the August 2009 primary for County Clerk of Wahkiakum County, Washington. He got almost as much publicity by dropping out as he got by filing. See this story. He said he had always planned to withdraw, and that he had filed just to publicize his point that the Washington state “top-two” is not fair to political parties because it lets anyone on the ballot with that party label, no matter what the party thinks of the candidate.

Today, the Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee passed SCR1025, by a party-line vote of 4-3. The measure, if signed into law, would amend the State Constitution to end public funding. Since it is a constitutional amendment, the voters would vote on the proposal in November 2010. See this story.