The Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE) holds its annual Board meeting on Saturday, June 16, at 10 a.m., in New York city. COFOE is 22 years old. It is a loose-knit coalition of the nation’s nationally-organized minor parties, plus other organizations that care about ballot access. This year, the chief topic on the agenda will probably be Oklahoma. Observers to the meeting are expected from the Working Families Party and Unity08.

COFOE is financed by membership dues. Members contribute $25 per year, and in return receive a free subscription to Ballot Access News. COFOE income, though relatively small, has helped finance ballot access lawsuits. When these lawsuits win, the attorney on COFOE’s side receives attorneys’ fees from the states. Then the attorney rebates back to COFOE any contributions from COFOE.

Unfortunately, even though two important ballot access lawsuits that had been backed by COFOE won last year, neither of the states involved (Ohio and Illinois) has paid COFOE’s attorneys their attorneys’ fees yet. Ohio says the Secretary of State’s budget is empty and the attorney must wait for the new fiscal year, which starts July 2007. Illinois admits it owes attorneys fees but is fighting over the amount, a fight which may take months to resolve. In the meantime, COFOE’s treasury is almost empty. This is a serious problem. COFOE intends to arrange an amicus curiae brief in the Pennsylvania ballot access case soon to be filed in the U.S. Supreme Court. Also, COFOE has already committed to helping launch a lawsuit against North Carolina’s law on how independent candidates for US House get on the ballot (the law is so severe, no independent candidate for US House has ever appeared on a government-printed ballot in North Carolina).

Please consider joining COFOE. One can send a check made out to COFOE for $25 and postally mailing it to PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147. Or, one can use PayPal. If you wish to use PayPal, contact Richard Winger at richardwinger@yahoo.com for instructions. As a member, you will receive Ballot Access News in the postal mail. The June 1 issue is in the mail now, and will be of special interest to anyone who is interested in Oklahoma.

It is likely that the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on HR 811 during the last three days of May. This is Congressman Rush Holt’s bill to ban vote-counting machines that produce no paper trail. Congressman Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.) recently introduced a somewhat similar bill, HR 2360, to counteract HR 811. HR 811 would take effect before the November 2008 election, but HR 2360 would put off implementation until 2010.

Also, on May 25, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Christopher Dodd introduced S1487, which also outlaws machines with no paper trail starting in 2010. It is co-sponsored by Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Patrick Leahy, Edward Kennedy, Dan Inouye, Robert Menendez, Sherrod Brown, and Bernie Sanders.

The New Hampshire House Election Law Committee has asked one of its staffers to gather research on how many votes are required in each state, for a group to meet the definition of “political party.” The current New Hampshire definition of party is a group that polled 4% at the last election for either U.S. Senate or Governor. The median vote test for the 50 states is 2%, and this information is now in the hands of the committee. This information will probably help to pass HB 48, next year. HB 48 lowers the vote test from 4% to 2%. It is too late for the bill to make any headway in 2007.

New Hampshire is the only New England state that has not had any qualified parties (other than the Democratic and Republican Parties) during the last six years.