On July 15, the U.S. Senate Rules Committee unanimously passed S.1415, a bill to make it easier for overseas voters to vote. The bill requires that states mail ballots to overseas absentee ballots no later than 45 days before the election. It also requires states to let such voters request a ballot electronically. It countermands any state law that requires an overseas absentee ballot to be notarized.

S.1415 has 21 Senator sponsors or co-sponsors, including 5 Republicans. The contents of the bill will probably be amended into the Department of Defense funding bill later this month. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this news. The bill can be read at http://thomas.loc.gov, although links don’t work. That site has a window in which the bill number can be typed, which takes one to the bill.

According to this article, the Alberta Green Party has lost its status as a qualified party because it was late filing its campaign finance report. The party said internal discord prevented it from gathering the data.

On July 14, California held a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 32nd district. The results: Democrat Judy Chu 61.67%; Republican Betty Chu 33.12%; Libertarian Christopher Agrella 5.21%.

This is the first time this district has had a contest between a Democrat and a Republican since 2002. In 2002, the vote had been: Democratic 68.79%, Republican 27.46%, Libertarian 3.74%. The district is centered in the Los Angeles County towns of El Monte and Covina.