On April 24, the Florida Senate Ethics & Elections Committee passed SB 960 by a 3-2 vote. It moves the presidential primary from March, to one week after the New Hampshire primary. That could create a January 29 primary, or even an earlier primary, depending on what New Hampshire does.

The bill also outlaws vote-counting machines with no paper trail.

However, the bill was amended to toughen the rules for groups that carry on voter registration drives, thereby causing Democratic legislators, and many interest groups, to say they will now fight the bill. In 2005, Florida had passed a bill imposing huge fines on groups that carry out voter registration, if they don’t get all the forms turned in quite soon after they have been filled out. But the 2005 law made an exception for political parties. In 2006, a federal court had issued an injunction against the law, citing the discriminatory treatment given to political parties. The 2007 amendment to SB 960 removes the exemption given to political parties, and reduces the fines.

As expected, on April 24, the Arizona House passed SB 1430, which makes the deadline for independent candidates and new parties worse. See the April 23 posting for more detail.

On April 25, MySpace.com and Mark Burnett announced that they will team up to produce a new Internet/Television show, similar to other reality shows, for potential independent candidates for president. Mark Burnett produced Survivor, The Apprentice, The Contender, Rock Star INXS, among other hit “reality” TV shows.

It is thought that Wayne Allyn Root (who is seeking the Libertarian presidential nomination) has been aware of this coming development, and plans to participate.

The show will immediately begin to search for a host TV network. It expects to begin searching for applicants in September 2007. The show would air in early 2008. The winner would receive a prize of $1,000,000, but the money could only be used for political activity. The show will be interactive, meaning that viewers and MySpace users would give feedback to the contestants and together would determine the winner.

A somewhat similar attempt was tried in 2003, called “The American Candidate.” However, the producers of that show were intimidated into banning actual candidates from participating in the show, because of fear of the federal campaign finance laws. “Independent” is resolute that it will not buckle under and that it wants actual candidates to participate. “The American Candidate” was supposed to have run on the Fox TV network, but in the end Fox dropped it and it only ran on Showtime.