On May 12, supporters of Donna Frye, the write-in candidate for Mayor of San Diego last November, withdrew their lawsuit over whether all of her write-ins should be tallied. The issue was those write-ins in which the voter wrote her in, but forgot to “x” the box next to the write-in line. The Frye voters withdrew their lawsuit because there will be a special election for Mayor on July 26, 2005 anyway. Also, it is now likely that the California legislature will pass a bill to legalize that type of write-in vote. Bills to do that have each passed in the house of origin. They are AB 43 and SB 1050. Since the bills are not identical, one of them still must pass the other house. Withdrawing the Frye lawsuit makes it even more likely that one of the bills will be signed into law.

The Alabama legislature’s final day is Monday, May 16. On that day, the fate of HB100, which moves the presidential primary to the first Saturday after New Hampshire’s primary, will be decided. The bill has already passed the House and all Senate committees.

So far this year, the only other state that has moved its presidential primary to an earlier date is Arkansas, which moved it from May to the first Tuesday in February. That change was made via SB235, signed into law on March 3, 2005.

Bills are pending in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to move those states’ presidential primaries to March. Pennsylvania’s is now in April, and New Jersey’s is now in June.

On May 11, North Carolina HB 1024 passed the House Election Law Committee. It lets 10 counties use Instant-Runoff Voting for their county and city elections, on a trial basis, in 2006 only. The State Board of Elections would choose which ten counties, based partly on the desires of those counties.