On February 8, the Montana Senate defeated SB 290, the National Popular Vote plan for presidential elections. The vote was 30-20. The sponsor, Senator Rick Laible, is a Republican. However, on the Senate floor, he was the only Republican to vote for the bill. All other Republicans, as well as 6 Democrats, voted against it. This is the first instance in any state at which any Democratic state legislators have voted against the plan. If all the Democratic Senators had voted for it, it would have narrowly passed.

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.

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.