Law Professor Mark R. Brown has authored an article that criticizes the Pennsylvania state courts for charging candidates huge fees for the costs of removing them from the ballot. The article can be seen here.
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California Assemblywoman Audra Strickland has tentatively agreed to introduce a bill to moderate the California minimum vote threshold for write-in candidates at partisan primaries. Slightly over half the states permit write-in votes in partisan primaries. Most of these states set a minimum number of write-ins needed for someone to win a primary by write-in vote. California has one of the most stringent such minimum vote tests. It is so severe, no one got nominated by write-in at California’s June 2006 primary, even though there were 7 races in which one of the two major parties tried very hard to nominate someone by write-in (in all 7 cases, no one had qualified to appear on the primary ballot of that party, so a write-in nomination was the only hope for that party to have a nominee on the November ballot).
The 4th circuit has agreed to expedite Miller v Brown. This is the Republican Party’s lawsuit against the Virginia open primary. Last year, the party won the case in U.S. District Court, as applied to offices in which the party is compelled to nominate by primary. The state appealed to the 4th circuit. All the briefs are due in the period February 22-March 15, 2007. Oral argument is likely in April 2007. Thanks to Steve Rankin for this news.
on February 8, the South Dakota House voted against a bill to move the state’s presidential primary from June to February. The bill, HB 1272, had received a tie vote of 35-35 on February 7. The next day it was brought up again, and defeated 29-40.
Rhode Island State Senator Leonidas Raptakis introduced S740 on February 15. It moves the presidential primary from March to February. Thanks to The Green Papers for this news.