Mason-Dixon Polling & Research released results of a New Hampshire presidential primary poll on June 8. The poll was conducted by telephone June 4-7. It includes 361 Republican and Independent voters who said they would likely vote in the Republican primary, and has these results: Mitt Romney 27%, John McCain 16%, Rudy Giuliani 15%, Fred Thompson 12%, Mike Huckabee 5%, Sam Brownback 1%, Duncan Hunter 1%, and under 1% for Ron Paul, Jim Gilmore, Tommy Thompson, and Tom Tancredo. Undecided was 22%. Although the pollster did not ask about Newt Gingrich, 1% of the respondents named him anyway.

The poll also included 411 Democratic and independent voters who said they would likely vote in the Democratic primary. Results were: Hillary Clinton 26%, Barack Obama 21%, John Edwards 18%, Bill Richardson 9%, Joe Biden 6%, Chris Dodd 1%, Mike Gravel 1%. Dennis Kucinich was under 1%. Undecided was 16%. Although Gore was not named by the pollster, 2% of the respondents mentioned him anyway.

The Alabama legislature adjourned for the year on June 7. The only election bill of interest that passed was one moving the presidential primary (but not the primary for other office) from June to February.

Bills to provide for a declaration of write-in candidacy, to apportion electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote, to pass the National Popular Vote Compact, all failed to pass.

The legislature got bad publicity on its last day, when a Republican State Senator punched a Democratic State Senator in the face, on the Senate floor.

The Pennsylvania constitutional ballot access case Rogers v Corbett will soon be presented to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is the case that challenges Pennsylvania law that says that even if a party meets the state’s definition of “party” (by having polled 2% of the vote in the last election), it can’t be on the ballot automatically unless it has registration of 15% of the state total.

The Center for Competitive Democracy plans to file an amicus curiae brief, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Rogers v Corbett. The Center for Competitive Democracy is a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2005. Its mission is to strengthen American democracy by increasing electoral competition. The Center’s amicus brief will probably be filed not only on its own behalf, but on behalf of some individual Pennsylvania voters who cast write-in votes in November 2006 for the nominees of the various parties that were kept off the ballot, and then discovered that Pennsylvania elections officials had not counted those write-ins. Thus, Pennsylvania’s system of excluding all statewide minor party candidates in 2006 not only injured those parties and their candidates, but it also deprived some voters of their right to vote. Pennsylvania law requires that all write-ins be counted and canvassed, but the law is routinely ignored in many counties.