On June 18, the Tennessee legislature adjourned for the year. The only interesting election law bill that passed was SB 547, which expanded the size of the State Election Commission, so that Republicans could have a majority on that commission.

Bills that didn’t pass included bills to provide for registration by party, to require voters at the polls to show government photo ID, to require new registrants to submit documents proving that they are citizens, to elect the Secretary of State and the Lieutenant Governor, and to provide for no-excuse absentee voting.

Current law requires vote-counting machines to create a paper trail, effective in 2010. A bill to postpone implementation of that rule to 2012 had been expected to pass, but it did not pass.

No bills were introduced in 2009 to ease procedures for new and previously unqualified parties to get on the ballot. The legislature seems unaware of the pending federal lawsuit filed in January 2008 by the Libertarian, Constitution and Green Parties of Tennessee, challenging those requirements, which are so strict they haven’t been used since 1968. That lawsuit has long been stalled because the Attorney General’s office has failed to respond to the answers to its interrogatories, which were filed last year. The attorney for the political parties expects to file a motion for summary judgment next week, since the state seems uninterested in contesting the evidence.

The June 19 issue of the St. Petersburg Times has this editorial, praising the State Supreme Court decision that struck down a law, permitting initiative signers to remove their names months after they have signed the initiative.

Although it is a matter of opinion, and there are probably many contrary opinions, my opinion is that progress for the National Popular Vote Plan is good for minor parties and independent presidential candidates. My opinion is based on the idea that if the National Popular Vote Plan got quite close to being implemented, the various state legislatures would mostly then be willing to pass a constitutional amendment to eliminate the electoral college. And that amendment would also bring about congressional authority to write one ballot access law for presidential elections. For example, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson’s pending constitutional amendment specifically authorizes Congress to do this.

I believe that a single ballot access procedure for presidential elections for the entire nation would be an improvement over the existing system. Minor parties and independent presidential candidates would no longer be at the mercy of states like Oklahoma, North Carolina, Georgia, and Indiana, states which are so severe for ballot access that Ralph Nader has never managed to appear on the ballot in those states, even though he is the person who came in third in 2000, 2004, and 2008.