February 13 editions of major newspapers are reporting that legislative leaders in Alabama expect to move the Alabama presidential primary from February 5 to February 2. Also, New York legislative leaders are apparently in agreement on a plan to move New York’s primary from early March to February 5.
On February 22, the Nebraska Senate Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee will hear LB 460. This bill eliminates Nebraska’s presidential primary, which has always been held in May. Instead it would direct political parties to hold precinct caucuses in early February for the ultimate purpose of choosing the state’s delegates to national conventions. Thanks to The Green Papers for this news.
The Green Party national committee has voted down a plan to revise the formula of how many national committeemembers each state should have. The plan, written by a special committee to wrestle with that issue, can be seen here. It is somewhat complicated, and tries to amalgamate data on rank-and-file membership, how many Green Party members hold elective office in that state, how many votes the party polled in that state for all partisan office, and how well the party’s presidential candidate did.
On February 13, the Idaho House State Affairs Committee voted to introduce a committee bill that would permit parties to close their primaries. Currently, Idaho has no registration by party. On primary election day, under current law, Idaho voters decide in secret which party’s primary to vote in.
The proposed bill will set up registration into political parties. However, parties would be free to either require that only registered members vote in their primaries, or to ignore the registration records and continue to let all voters vote in their primaries. If the bill passes, it is likely that the Republican Party will close its primary, but the other qualified parties in the state are likely to leave their primaries open.
On February 8, the New Hampshire State Senate passed SB 36 by a vote of 18-6. The bill eliminates the straight-ticket device and gives New Hampshire an office-group style ballot format.
A “straight-ticket device” lets voters vote for all partisan offices on the ballot with just one motion (the voter simply chooses one political party’s nominees for all offices, without voting individually for each office). The devices are especially injurious to independent candidates, since independent candidates never have such a device for themselves. These devices also injure minor party candidates. In 2006, slightly more than one-third of all New Hampshire voters used the “straight-ticket device.”
