The National Popular Vote Plan bill has a hearing in the Maine joint Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday, January 28, at 1 pm in Room 437 of the State House. The bill is LD 56.
Reply
On January 22, the Arkansas House voted unanimously to move the presidential primary from February to May. The bill is HB 1021.
On January 22, the Federal Election Commission raised the limits on how much money individuals may contribute to candidates for federal office, and to national party committees. The limit on a contribution to a candidate had been $2,300 in 2008, but now it is $2,400. The limit on how much an individual can contribute to a national political party has been raised from $28,500 to $30,400. The FEC is empowered to increase these limits for inflation.
On January 26, the U.S. Supreme Court denied yet another request for injunctive relief over whether President Obama meets the constitutional qualifications. Lightfoot v Bowen, 08A524. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.
This article says New York state is behind schedule in choosing new vote-counting equipment to replace its mechanical voting machines. New York state is the only state that still uses these machines. The state is in violation of federal law. The machines have only nine columns (or nine rows, depending on which style is in use). Because New York state uses the party-column (or party-row) ballot format, this forces the state to put two parties in the same column (or row). In November 2008, the state squeezed Ralph Nader’s Populist Party, and the Libertarian Party, into the same column, making it relatively difficult for voters to find either one.