On May 12, 2009, the New York State Board of Elections revised its official vote totals from the presidential election of November 2008. As compared to the last tally (of March 13, 2009), Barack Obama gained 244 votes; John McCain gained 43 votes; Ralph Nader gained one vote; Bob Barr gained one vote. Thanks to Rhodes Cook for this news.
Virginia elects all 100 members of its State House on November 3, 2009. The petition deadline for independent candidates, and for the nominees of unqualified parties, was June 9. It appears that the Independent Green Party will have about a dozen candidates, and the Libertarian Party will have one, and the Green Party will have one or two, and the Constitution Party will have one. As far as is known, no other minor parties are running any candidates. The exact list of candidates won’t be available from the State Board of Elections until July 1. Candidates file in their home city or county so the State Board still doesn’t know who has filed.
The Uniform Law Commission has existed since 1892. It is composed of Commissioners appointed by each state, who meet once per year to draft proposed model state laws. All Commissioners must be attorneys. The purpose of the Commission is to help the states pass uniform laws in areas in which uniformity is judged to be useful to the entire nation.
The Commission will spend an hour at its next meeting working on a draft of a proposed state law to force presidential electors to vote for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates chosen by their own state’s political party (or, if an independent presidential candidate carried that state, to force the electors to vote for that independent presidential candidate). The working draft proposes that if an elector votes for someone other than his or her state party’s presidential nominee, that elector is deemed to have resigned; at that point the remaining electors would choose someone new.
The meeting to discuss this idea will be on Sunday morning, July 12, 2009, at the group’s annual meeting, which this year is being held at Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Uniform Law Commission does lets members of the public observe, but not testify. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
On June 11, the Florida Supreme Court agreed to expedite its decision in Florida Hometown Democracy v Browning. The case had been argued in January 2009. The issue is the constitutionality of a 2007 law that makes it possible for voters to delete their signatures after they have signed an initiative petition. The State Court of Appeals had ruled that the law violates the State Constitution, which gives the legislature the authority to pass laws to help implement the initiative process. The State Court of Appeals had said that means the legislature doesn’t have the authority to pass laws that hinder the initiative process.
Florida Hometown Democracy has been working for four years to collect enough signatures to qualify its initiative, which would require a popular vote in a locality before a new housing development can be approved. Florida law requires initiative petitions to be completed within 4 years. The 4 years runs out on June 22, 2009.
On June 10, Pennsylvania Representative Eugene DePasquale (D-York) introduced HB 1672. It provides that parties that hold primaries (i.e., those parties with registration of 15% or more) must let independent voters vote in their primaries. If the bill were to be signed into law, the only Pennsylvania voters would who not be able to vote in major party primaries would be members of minor parties. Under the bill, independents could choose which party primary to vote in. The bill has 9 co-sponsors.
