Nevada SB 212 would require statewide initiative petitions to obtain the signatures of 10% of the last vote cast in each one of Nevada’s 42 Assembly districts. If an initiative petition got enough signatures statewide, and got the required 10% in 41 Assembly districts, yet lacked enough signatures in just one Assembly district, then the entire petition would be invalid.
SB 212 passed the Senate Legislative Operations & Elections Committee on April 9, and is now in the Senate Finance Committee.
Congressman Ron Paul recently donated $500 to the Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE). This is the largest donation COFOE has ever received in its 24 years of existence. COFOE is a loose coalition of the nation’s nationally-organized minor parties, and also of other organizations that support efforts to ease ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates, and to improve candidate debate inclusion.
The donation may make it possible to go ahead with the long-delayed lawsuit against the District of Columbia for refusing to tally write-in votes for declared presidential candidates.
Anyone who donates $25 to COFOE per year receives a free copy of the printed Ballot Access News. If you wish to join, use this address: PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147.
Arizona is in the position of not having a valid petition deadline for independent candidates, since the law was declared unconstitutional last year. The Secretary of State will ask the legislature to set the new deadline in mid or late August. However, there is some concern that the legislature won’t pass any ordinary bills at all this year, since the budget is consuming the legislature’s attention.
According to this news story, the Majority Leader of the Florida House says the legislature will not have time to consider the omnibus election law bills, HB 497 and S 956. Those identical bills, 81 pages long, included a ban on paying initiative petitioners per signature.
This year, activists have had good success stopping bills to make ballot access more difficult. So far, bills to restrict circulators have either died, or failed to make much headway so far, in Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, and Virginia. Also, the only states that considered making an independent candidate or minor party petition deadline worse (South Dakota and Texas) did not do so, and an early petition deadline bill in Missouri has not moved.
On Sunday, April 26, the New Jersey Libertarian Party nominated Ken Kaplan for Governor. Kaplan had also run for that position as a Libertarian in 1993.
