Florida Representative Kevin Rader (D-Delray Beach) has introduced H759, to move the presidential primary from January to the 2nd Tuesday in March.
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Maine State Senator Peter Bowman (D-Kittery) has introduced LD 547, which improves the write-in process. It requires that the list of declared write-in candidates be posted at each polling place. It deletes the requirement that the voter write-in not only the name of the candidate, but the name of the town that the candidate lives in. It also directs the Secretary of State to include the list of declared write-in candidates on the webpage of the state Elections Division.
This bill was initiated by Herb Hoffman, independent candidate for U.S. Senate in 2008 who was unjustly kept off the ballot and who then had to contend with poor government policies for write-in campaigns.
On February 18, the Wyoming Senate passed HB 76. It had already passed the House. It says that if the Secretary of State has not received the certification of any qualified party as to whom it nominated for president and vice-president by 60 days before the November election, the state will not print the name of that party’s national nominees on the November ballot. Instead it will just say, for example, “Republican nominees for president and vice-president” without naming them.
On February 18, the South Dakota House passed HB 1234 by a vote of 52-17. It moves the independent candidate petition deadline from June to April.
Thirteen Arizona legislators have introduced HB 2579, which provides that independent voters may vote in any party’s presidential primary, unless that particular party tells the Secretary of State at least 85 days in advance of the presidential primary that it doesn’t wish to let independent voters vote in its presidential primary.