On June 24, New York Governor David Paterson signed A8501. It makes it fairly easy to qualify a local initiative that has the purpose of asking the voters if they wish to abolish any particular local unit of government, or if they wish to merge two different local governments.
A8501 is the only election law bill that has passed the New York legislature this year.
The District of Columbia city council is responsible for writing election laws for the District. On July 13, at 11 a.m, a committee of the Council holds a hearing on Bill 18-345, the “Omnibus Election Reform Act of 2009”. The hearing is at the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, in room 120. Instructions for people who wish to testify are here.
The bill can be seen here. It makes ballot access worse, in Title IX of the bill, which starts on page 17. Title IX is titled “miscellaneous”. It says that the Board will be entitled to impose filing fees in the future, with the amount to be determined by regulation. Currently, ballot access in the District is by petition. It is not reasonable to impose fees and petitions. The purpose of either filing fees, or petitions, it to keep the ballot uncrowded. If D.C. wants to impose filing fees, it should provide that they are substitutes for a petition, not in addition.
D.C. presidential ballot access is among the most difficult in the nation. The law requires a petition signed by 1% of the number of registered voters. The only states with no method for the presidential candidate of an unqualified party, or an independent presidential candidate, to get on the ballot, other than a petition that difficult, are California, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.
In 2008, only one presidential petition in the District succeeded, that of Ralph Nader. The Green Party was already ballot-qualified so Cynthia McKinney was on the ballot with no petition needed.
“Frontloading HQ”, a blog by Political Science Graduate student Josh Putnam, has this piece, debating whether the 2012 Republican presidential primaries might be affected if Democrats (who, presumably, will only have a boring one-candidate presidential primary of their own in 2012) decide to vote in Republican presidential primaries. The article does not come to a conclusion.
“Frontloading HQ”, a blog by Political Science Graduate student Josh Putnam, has this piece, debating whether the 2012 Republican presidential primaries might be affected if Democrats (who, presumably, will only have a boring one-candidate presidential primary of their own in 2012) decide to vote in Republican presidential primaries. The article does not come to a conclusion.
On June 23, the three ballot-listed candidates for U.S. House in California’s 32nd district held a debate in Azusa. The three candidates are Democrat Judy Chu, Republican Betty Chu, and Libertarian Christopher Agrella. This article describes the debate, although it barely mentions Agrella, although he is in the picture. The caption under the picture, saying the election is for the California Assembly, is an error. The election is July 14.
