As reported previously, the Oklahoma bill to lower the number of signatures for a previously unqualified party to get on the ballot, HB 1072, passed both Houses of the legislature last month, but a conference committee is needed because the version of the bill in the Senate differed from the version in the House. The legislature has now appointed a conference committee to set one version of the bill. That committee will be meeting sometime this week.
This year, the Democratic Party of Charlottesville, Virginia, is using Ranked-Choice voting to choose party nominees for city council and sheriff. See this article. Thanks to Steve Rankin for the link.
Maryland bills SB 947 and HB 1562 did not make any headway, and it is now too late for either of them to pass. The identical bills lowered the number of signatures for a new party from 10,000 to 5,000 signatures.
Texas HB 1193 has passed all committee hurdles in the House, and is on the consent calendar for a vote in the House on May 12. UPDATE: it did pass the Texas House on May 12. HB 1193 relaxes the deadline for qualified parties to certify the names of their presidential and vice-presidential nominees. Existing law says the certifications are due 70 days before the general election. The bill says they are due on the later of either the 70th day, or the first business day after a party national convention adjourns. The bill’s sponsor is Rep. Kelly Hancock (R-Fort Worth).
This bill exists because both the Democratic and Republican Parties missed the deadline in 2008. The Secretary of State accepted their filings anyway. The public would not have known that the major parties were late, if the Texas Libertarian Party hadn’t noticed. Bob Barr had asked the Texas Supreme Court to remove the major party presidential tickets, but the Texas Supreme Court denied the request with no opinion.
If this bill is signed into law, it will be ironic that Texas will have one of the most flexible deadlines in the nation for a qualified party to certify its presidential nominee, yet the earliest petition deadline for independent presidential candidates. The Texas independent presidential petition is due in the first half of May, but no other state has such a deadline until the second half of June. Colorado, Illinois, and Indiana are the only states with June deadlines; all other states are in July, August and September.
On May 8, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin III signed HB 2981, the ballot access improvement bill. West Virginia now has the best independent and minor party candidate petition deadline (for office other than president) that it has had since 1919. The new deadline is August 1. In 1919, the legislature had moved that deadline from October to May, and it had remained in May for 90 years.
