This morning, the New York Times editorialized that New York state should buy optical-scan vote-counting machines, not touch-screen voting machines. Here is a link to the editorial, which is markedly clear and persuasive.
Reply
On March 8, Arizona SB 1205 passed the State Senate unanimously. Among other things, it lowers the number of signatures needed for a new party to get on the ballot in gubernatorial years, from about 26,000 signatures, to about 16,000. However, it does not make access any easier in presidential election years. The bill’s progress so far is due to good lobbying by the Constitution Party.
On March 4, Kentucky HB 141 passed the Senate. HB 141 is the first ballot access improvement bill to pass out of a legislature, so far in 2005. It removes the restriction on petitioning for president in the odd year before an election. It also removes the requirement that minor party and independent candidates for president file any declaration of candidacy in advance of turning in signatures. The bill was backed by the Secretary of State and passed in both houses unanimously.
Connecticut’s Government Administration and Elections Committee (which serves both houses of the legislature) will hear SB 1233 on March 7. The bill creates a petition procedure by which a group can transform itself into a qualified minor party.
If the bill were enacted, any group that circulated a petition signed by 1% of the last vote cast would become a qualified minor party. It could nominate by convention for any or all partisan offices in the state. The Working Families Party initiated this bill.
Connecticut is now one of only 12 states which lacks any procedure for a group to become a qualified party, in advance of any particular election.
Last month, the Prohibition Party became ballot-qualified in Florida. This is the first time the party has been ballot-qualified in any state, since it lost its qualified status in New Mexico in 1992. It’s very easy for a party to become qualified in Florida; it merely submits a list of its state officers. The only hurdle that ballot-qualified parties have in Florida is that each nominee must pay a very high filing fee; however there is no fee to run for president.