On January 14, West Virginia Libertarian Party state chair Matt Harris, and national chair Bill Redpath, spent the day lobbying key West Virginia legislators for better ballot access. Currently, for president, West Virginia is tied with North Carolina for having the 2nd most restrictive requirement. West Virginia requirements for office other than president are even more restrictive than for president, and no statewide non-presidential petition has succeeded in West Virginia since 2000.
On January 13, the Tennessee legislature came into session. Even though Republicans had a bare majority in the State House, Democrats elected Kent Williams Speaker. Williams is a Republican, but all the votes for him (except his own vote) came from Democrats. Williams says he will appoint Committee Chairmen from both major parties. See this article.
This Tennessee legislature appoints the Secretary of State. It is unclear as to whether Tuesday’s news means that long-time Democratic Secretary of State Riley Darnell will remain in office.
On January 12, the Huntsville Times ran this editorial, in favor of easing Alabama’s ballot access laws.
Bills have been introduced in the Arkansas legislature to move the presidential primary from February to May. They are SB 56 and HB 1021. Arkansas held its presidential primary to February in 2008, but most state legislators now feel the early primary was not productive. So many other states also voted in February, Arkansas’ presidential primary got little attention.
The ballot access improvement bill still has not been introduced in Arkansas.
On January 13, a Minnesota state district court ruled that Instant-Runoff Voting is consistent with the Minnesota Constitution. Therefore, Minneapolis may implement IRV (passed several years ago by vote of the people) for its own city elections. This also clears the way to place a similiar ballot measure on the St. Paul ballot. The case is Minnesota Voters Alliance v City of Minneapolis, 27-cv-08-15.
Opponents of IRV say they will appeal. Opponents of IRV, in this lawsuit, include John Linback, head of the Oregon Elections Division, who submitted an affidavit saying that IRV fails to treat all voters equally.
