SB 5561 in Washington state, to permit election-day registration, passed the Senate on March 13, and passed the House State Government Committee on March 30. It will receive a vote on the House floor very soon. County elections officials are strongly opposed to the bill and are working hard to defeat it. However, Democrats control the legislature and the Governor’s chair and seem solid in support of the bill.
The National Popular Vote Plan has finally been introduced in Maine. It is LD 1744. It has five sponsors in the Senate and six sponsors in the House. One of the sponsors is the Maine House Majority Leader, Hannah Pingree.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, MSNBC, and The Politico, are all sponsoring the first debate between candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination. The debate will be May 3, 2007. Nine candidates will debate: Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Tommy Thompson.
The three debate sponsors will also sponsor a 2nd Republican debate on January 30, 2008.
In the last few months, two new parties qualified for the Oregon ballot, the Working Families Party, and the Independent Party. They each did this with a petition drive.
Like most states that have registration by party, the Oregon voter registration forms list all the qualified parties. Oregon’s Secretary of State initially told the two new parties that it would cost too much money for him to reprint the voter registration forms, and that for the next year, he would continue using up old forms that don’t list the two new parties. But after the Attorney General of Oregon expressed an informal opinion that such behavior might be held unconstitutional, the Secretary of State changed his mind. The new forms will be available everywhere by early July 2007. Thanks to Dan Meek for this news.
On April 3, the Oregon House Elections & Ethics Committee passed HB 2084. It provides for a February 5 presidential primary in 2008. Since Oregon votes entirely by mail, this would mean that Oregonians would be casting presidential primary ballots starting in early January, although no results would be known until after February 5. Therefore, Oregonians would be voting in large numbers earlier than the primary voters of any other state.
