On May 6, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Election Laws will take testimony on HB 710, which would establish the National Popular Vote Plan.
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On May 5, Illinois State Senator Terry Link filed an amendment to HB 723 that makes that bill less harmful. The bill, as passed by the House, makes it virtually impossible for a qualified party to nominate someone after the primary, by requiring such late nominees to submit a petition signed by 5% of the last vote cast. Senator Link’s amendment lowers the number of signatures. The amendment would make the petition requirement equal to the number of signatures that the candidate would have needed if he or she had filed to run in the primary in the first place. Primary petitions in Illinois generally require only about one-half of 1% of that party’s vote at the last general election.
Even if the bill gets amended, it is still burdensome. The petitions would need to be circulated between mid-February and mid-April, not good months for petitioning in states with severe winters. Also there really is no logic in requiring petitions for candidates who are chosen by committee. The rationale for petitions is to keep ballots from being crowded, but in this case there is no primary ballot.
On May 5, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed SB 86, which requires voters to submit documents (such as a birth certificate or naturalization papers) when registering to vote. The only other state with such a law is Arizona. See this news story. It will be interesting to see if the U.S. Justice Department approves the change. Georgia is covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, so Georgia can’t change any election law without getting approval.
The Daily Voice, a print/web daily newspaper in New York city which describes itself as a news source for black Americans, carries this op-ed by Lenora Fulani. The op-ed, which ran May 5, makes a case that black voters in New York city should support Mayor Mike Bloomberg for re-election, on the Independence Party line. The op-ed discusses the term limits issue. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
Lenora Fulani was the presidential candidate of the New Alliance Party in 1988 and 1992. The New Alliance Party placed her on the ballot in all 50 states in 1988. The only other minor parties that ever placed a presidential nominee on the ballot in all the jurisdictions with electoral votes (in the last 90 years) were the Libertarian Party and the Reform Party.
The Oregon Senate Rules Committee has scheduled a work session for SB 326. This is the bill to repeal the 2005 law that said voters may not sign for an independent candidate if they voted, or intend to vote, in a partisan primary. The work session is on Friday, May 8, at 10:30 a.m. Thanks to Dan Meek for this news.