On May 14, the California Assembly Appropriations Committee passed AB 909. It had previously passed the Assembly Elections Committee. It provides that at the polls on primary election day, elections officials must inform independent voters that they are free to choose the primary ballot of any party that has agreed to let independent voters vote in its primaries.

Currently, polling place officials are not supposed to tell independent voters that they are free to request a Republican ballot, or a Democratic ballot, or an American Independent ballot. The independent voter is supposed to know that already, but many do not know it.

The other qualified parties in California (Green, Libertarian, Peace & Freedom) do not permit independent voters to vote in their primaries. Also, the Republican Party lets independents vote in its primary for Congress and state office, but does not let them vote in its presidential primary.

The NAACP of Georgia is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its case against Georgia’s law, requiring voters at the polls to show government photo-ID in order to vote. The case in the lower courts was called Common Cause/Georgia v Billups, but now it is called NAACP v Billups, no. 08-1231. Here is the brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s photo-ID law on April 28, 2008, but the Indiana case had been filed with no voter-plaintiffs who lacked the needed ID. The Court said the law was constitutional on its face but left the door open to an as-applied challenge after the law had been used. By contrast, the Georgia NAACP case has two voter-plaintiffs who lack any government photo-ID. The Court hasn’t set a conference date yet, but is expected to set one in a few days.

Recently, two South Carolina representative districts switched from having a Democratic member, to having a Republican member.

On May 15, Representative Dennis Moss of the 29th district announced he was switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. See this story. He had been re-elected in November 2008 as a Democrat, receiving 53.3% of the vote in a two-party race.

On April 30, South Carolina had held a special election in the adjacent 30th district to fill a vacancy. Although the Democrats had won the 30th district in November 2008 with 54.7% of the vote, at the special election, Republican nominee Steve Moss was elected with 53.6% of the vote in a two-party race. It is not known if the two new Republicans, both with a surname of Moss, are related.