On February 20, the Oklahoma House Subcommittee on Elections & Redistricting passed HB 2869 and HB 3350.
HB 2869 makes it illegal to pay circulators on a per-signature basis. HB 3350 expands the period in which to circulate a statewide initiative from 90 days to one year.
In the 29 states (and D.C.) that have registration by party, the percentage of voters who are Democrats has been:
1992 47.76%
1994 47.13%
1996 45.69%
1998 44.94%
2000 43.84%
2002 42.68%
2004 41.87%
2006 41.64%
2008 41.66%
All the figures are for October or November of the year indicated, except that the 2008 figure is as of either late 2007, or early 2008. The only exception is Maine, which hasn’t done a tally during the last year. Maine data is included but it is as of November 2006.
A state-by-state breakdown, plus figures for independents and minor parties, will be in the print edition of Ballot Access News, March 1 2008 edition.
Ralph Nader filed a lawsuit last year against the Democratic National Committee, for conspiring to prevent voters from voting for him in November 2004. The DNC filed motions to dismiss the case earlier last month, and Nader’s attorneys have just filed a response, explaining why the lawsuit should proceed to trial. Here is a copy of Nader’s latest brief. It is 30 pages long. The case is in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, and is called Nader v McAuliffe, 1:07cv-1101.
A bill in Washington state to make it more difficult for initiatives to get on the ballot has been killed by the House Rules Committee. It is HB 2601, and it had passed the House State Government Committee on February 5, and the House Appropriations Committee on February 7.
Currently, Washington state initiative petitions are valid, regardless of who collected the signatures. Circulators don’t even need to sign the sheets that they collected. HB 2601 would have required that each sheet be signed by the circulator. If the circulator is being paid, the circulator must have registered with the state, taken and passed a test, been issued “credentials” which includes a photo showing the circulator’s face, neck, and shoulders. No one could be “credentialed” to be a paid circulator who was a convicted sex offender, or who had been convicted of any crime in any state involving fraud, ID theft, or forgery in the last five years. Any paid circulator’s address would be a public record.
Major newspapers editorialized against the bill, and Paul Jacob (the nation’s leading activist to extend and protect the initiative process) toured the state, organizing opposition to the bill. Here is an op-ed against the bill that ran in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Twentynine states and the District of Columbia have registration by party. Ballot Access News has been tabulating registration data from these states, by party, ever since 1992.
Current registration data from these 30 jurisdictions shows that only 31.89% of registrants are now registered Republicans. Prior Republican percentages (at the general election) for the nation have been:
2006 32.39%
2004 32.32%
2002 32.55%
2000 32.78%
1998 33.26%
1996 33.78%
1994 33.55%
1992 32.97%
