Thomas Golisano told the press on May 15 that he is moving from New York to Florida. Golisano was the Independence Party’s gubernatorial candidate in 1994, 1998, and 2002. He is a billionaire, and he spent lavishly on his campaigns, polling enough votes in 2002 to give the Independence Party the third line on New York ballots (New York puts parties on the ballot in the order of how many votes they polled for Governor). See this story. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link. Golisano says he is paying $13,000 per day to New York in state taxes. Florida does not have a state income tax.

Free & Equal released this press release on May 15, asking people who care about ballot access to contact certain key Oklahoma legislators today and in the next few days, urging support for HB 1072. HB 1072 lowers the number of signatures to put a previously unqualified party on the Oklahoma ballot. Please, if you care about this issue, make some phone calls yourself, even if you don’t live in Oklahoma. The conference committee does not meet formally, but handles its business by the process of individual members talking to other individual members of the Committee. The conference committee has 223 bills to consider by May 21.

On May 14, the California Assembly unanimously passed AB 308. It provides that overseas voters who are voting in an election that requires a run-off if no one gets 50% of the vote in the first round, will be sent two ballots in the same envelope. The envelope would include a normal ballot, and a separate ballot for the same election using Instant Runoff. The overseas voter is then free to mark both ballots. In the event that the election requires a run-off, that voter’s IRV ballot is used, so that there is no need to mail that voter a separate ballot for the run-off.