The daily newspaper of Dunkirk, New York, has this story in its March 14 issue on the process by which the League of Women Voters is currently studying the National Popular Vote Plan idea for choosing a president. The article focuses on the Chautauqua County branch of the League, which apparently has finished its study and seems favorable to the idea. League chapters all across the U.S. are working on the study this year.
U.S. House member Bill Posey, a freshman Republican from Florida’s 15th district, has introduced HB 1503. It requires presidential candidates who file with the Federal Election Commission to include a copy of their birth certificate. The 15th district is centered on Florida’s central Atlantic coast, around the city of Melbourne.
The text of the bill is not yet available on the Library of Congress’ web page, http://thomas.loc.gov, but it probably will be by Monday, March 16. UPDATE: here is a copy of the bill, thanks to Ed Still’s VoteLawblog.
In somewhat related news, Orly Taitz, attorney for many of the individuals challenging President Obama’s qualifications, has been able to ask two U.S. Supreme Court Justices about her issue in the last week. On March 9 she was in the audience when Justice Antonin Scalia was speaking, and she asked him about it. He replied simply that it takes 4 justices for the Court to accept a case. On March 13 she was in the audience in Washington state when Chief Justice John Roberts was speaking, and she was able to ask him a question as well. See this story. She asserted that she has proof that Obama is not eligible. The Chief Justice replied that if she has such documents with her, she should hand them to a security officer, who presumably would then have later given them to the Chief Justice. The article does not say if Taitz had any papers with her at the time. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.
The New York State Board of Elections recently revised its official November 2008 election returns, to include some votes from Queens that has been accidentally omitted from the earlier official tally. The new returns show 162 more votes for Ralph Nader, 82 more votes for Bob Barr, 72 more votes for Cynthia McKinney, 20 more write-in votes for Chuck Baldwin, 19 more votes for Roger Calero, and 10 more votes for Gloria La Riva. Here is a link to the new totals. Of course, there are also new additional votes for Barack Obama and John McCain. Thanks to Professor Michael McDonald for this news.
The Washington Secretary of State’s bill to fix certain problems with “top-two” failed to make enough progress in the State Senate, and it is now too late for the bill, SB 5681, to pass. The bill tried to set a limit on the party names that candidates may “prefer” (such party preferences are printed on primary and general election ballots). The bill said the party had to either be a qualified political party (one which met the vote test in the last election), or a group that submitted 100 signatures that election year. Under existing law, a candidate can “prefer” any group that pops into his or her head, which is why one candidate last year said he preferred the Salmon Yoga Party, and many candidates prefered the “GOP Party”.
Also, the bill changed the vote test from 5% for any statewide nominee, to 1% for president. Since parties no longer have nominees (except for president), and since the existing vote test applies in every even-numbered year, this means that the Republicans and Democrats will also fail to be qualified parties after the November 2010 election, since none of their nominees will have polled 5% in November 2010, since they won’t have any nominees in November 2010. However, a similar bill will probably pass in 2010. Thanks to Linde Knighton for the news.
The Washington Secretary of State’s bill to fix certain problems with “top-two” failed to make enough progress in the State Senate, and it is now too late for the bill, SB 5681, to pass. The bill tried to set a limit on the party names that candidates may “prefer” (such party preferences are printed on primary and general election ballots). The bill said the party had to either be a qualified political party (one which met the vote test in the last election), or a group that submitted 100 signatures that election year. Under existing law, a candidate can “prefer” any group that pops into his or her head, which is why one candidate last year said he preferred the Salmon Yoga Party, and many candidates prefered the “GOP Party”.
Also, the bill changed the vote test from 5% for any statewide nominee, to 1% for president. Since parties no longer have nominees (except for president), and since the existing vote test applies in every even-numbered year, this means that the Republicans and Democrats will also fail to be qualified parties after the November 2010 election, since none of their nominees will have polled 5% in November 2010, since they won’t have any nominees in November 2010. However, a similar bill will probably pass in 2010. Thanks to Linde Knighton for the news.
