On the evening of June 5, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry vetoed HB 2246, which would have expanded the petitioning period for initiatives from 90 days to one year. Governor Henry said he approved of most parts of the bill, but he vetoed it because of section III of the bill, which made it a crime for opponents of an initiative to interfere with the petitioning process. UPDATE: see this article in the Tulsa World of June 8 about the veto.

Another bill is pending in the current two-year session of the legislature that also contains the expansion of the initiative petitioning period from 90 days to one year, but because the legislature has adjourned, it cannot possibly pass until 2010.

Great Britain voted on local offices as well as European Parliamentary elections on Thursday, June 4. The new Libertarian Party of Great Britain had a candidate for Cambridge County Council, Andrew Hunt, in the Wisbech South district. He polled 6.9%. The Conservative polled 46.2%; UK Independence Party polled 26.4%; Labour 10.5%; Liberal Democrat 9.7%. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this link to a webpage for the British Libertarians.

Krist Novoselic, well-known musician and also prominent activist for Instant Runoff Voting, has filed to run for County Clerk of Wahkiakum County this year. See this story in the blog of Spokane’s daily newspaper, the Spokesman-Review. What makes this item especially newsworthy is that he has chosen the ballot label “Prefers Grange Party.”

County executive positions in Washington state are traditionally partisan, so county elections are now under the “top-two” system, in which candidates may “prefer” any name they wish. The Secretary of State’s bill earlier this year, that would have confined labels to groups that submitted a petition, did not pass, so anyone is free to run for partisan office in Washington with any “preference” the person wishes.

The Grange is the major force in favor of “top-two” in Washington state, and financed the 2004 initiative that resulted in “top-two” being in effect in Washington, starting in 2008. There is no indication of what the Grange thinks about Novoselic’s “party preference”. Novoselic is an official of the Grange in Wahkiakum County, yet in actuality, he is a Democrat who does not fully support “top-two”, as the article explains. Thanks to Kelly Haughton for the link. See Haughton’s blog post about this here.