On June 3, the New York legislature passed A8501, which streamlines procedures for one particular type of local initiative. The bill deals with initiatives to abolish a local government, or initiatives to consolidate two or more local governments. Existing law requires that such an initiative petition include the signatures of 33% of the registered voters. The bill would change that to 10% of the registered voters, or 500 voters, whichever is less. For very small entities (those with fewer than 500 voters), the petition would be 20%. For a countywide petition, the requirement would be 25% of the registered voters, or 15,000 signatures, whichever is less. Under the bill, circulators for such petitions may live anywhere in the state (current law requires them to live in the jurisdiction that is being affected). See this article. This seems to be the only election law bill likely to pass in this year’s session, which ends in less than three weeks.

New York has 10,521 local government units. Most of them are special districts. Experts on public administration generally agree that New York state wastes tax dollars because it has too many local governments and special districts.

The June 5 issue of Spokane’s daily newspaper, the Spokesman-Review, has this major article on Krist Novoselic and his campaign for County Clerk under the “Prefers Grange Party” label. The previous publicity had just been in the newspaper’s blog. The newspaper story says Novoselic, a Grange officer, will be trying to persuade the Grange to amend the law in the future. Also see this article at Daily Kos. Thanks to Nancy Hanks for the Daily Kos link.

On June 5, Maine Governor John Baldacci signed LD1169 into law. It improves the ability of voters to cast a write-in vote for a declared write-in candidate. It deletes the requirement that the voter write-in not only the name of the candidate, but the town of residence of the candidate. Also it provides that the names of declared write-in candidates be posted in polling places. And it says that the tally sheets at the local polling place must have the names of the declared write-in candidates printed, next to the names of the candidates listed on the ballot, so as to remind local polling place officials to include those write-ins in the tally.

It also moves the deadline for a declared write-in to file to 45 days before the election. That is a more restrictive requirement than the old law, but it was necessary in order to implement the other parts of the law, and also to make sure that absentee voters have the same field of candidates as the voters who vote on election day.

The bill is an omnibus election bill and contains many other unrelated provisions. It specifies that the person who signs the bottom of any petition (in his or her role as the circulator) must have actually collected all the signatures, rather than just witnessing the signatures being collected. Thanks to Herb Hoffman for this news.