On February 12, the Washington State Committee on State Government & Tribal Affairs passed HB 1624, to establish internet voting for military and overseas voters. It now goes to the Appropriations Committee, where it will be heard on February 25. The bill has opposition from people who worry that the procedure isn’t safe; the normal state law mandating a paper trail is waived for this type of voting. A companion bill in the Senate is SB 5522.

There are similar bills in the Alabama legislature, but they haven’t moved yet. They are SB 180 and HB 377. Also, there are bills to study voting by internet in Colorado (HB 1205), Hawaii (SB 631 and HB 468), Missouri (HB 613), Montana (SB 367), New Mexico (HB 487), Oregon (HB 2511), and Texas (HB 71 and SB 92). Virginia has HB 1881, to authorize sending the ballot overseas electronically but requiring that it be mailed postally back to the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, no. 08-205, on March 24. Citizens United is a corporation with 501(c)(4) (tax exempt) status. It produced a movie in late 2007 called “Hillary, the Movie” and wanted to air it in movie theaters and also make it available on cable television, but only “on demand” from the cable subscriber. The FEC said that Citizens United must reveal the names of all the individuals who had contributed money toward making the movie, so Citizens United pulled the movie out of theaters and never made it available on Cable. The lower court upheld the FEC’s position.

New York City is holding a special election to fill the vacant City Council seat in the 32nd district in Brooklyn. The election is February 24. At a debate among the four candidates held on February 19, the audience expressed hostility toward one of the candidates, Professor Geraldine Chapey, because she had successfully challenged the ballot access petitions of one of her opponents, Frank Gulluscio. See this article.

Ironically, a few days later, the candidate who had successfully challenged one of her oppponents off the ballot, also succeeded in knocking another of her opponents off the ballot. See this story. Glenn DiResto was removed from the ballot because his partisan label, “Families First”, was deemed too similar to “Working Families”, and in special elections, candidates cannot use the name of a qualified party as a ballot label.