On February 20, The Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed SB 1609. It forbids political parties from changing their name. It also says that no party may have the word “Independent” in is name. It is retroactive to 2024.
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Wyoming is the only state that elects some statewide state offices other than just Governor (or a team of Governor and Lieutenant Governor), yet doesn’t elect its Attorney General. On February 10, HB 60, a proposed constitutional amendment for an elected Attorney General, failed in the House. Although it got a majority, it needed two-thirds because this year’s session is a budget session, and non-budget bills can’t be considered unless they get two-thirds approval. The vote was 35-26.
On February 20, the Virginia House Privileges and Elections Committee passed SB 322, the National Popular Vote plan bill. The vote was 13-8. It had already passed the Senate.
An identical bill, HB 965, passed the House on February 12 and then passed the Senate Privileges & Elections Committee on February 24.
On February 5, the Alabama House passed HB 67, which lowers the cost of the list of registered voters from approximately $38,000, to exactly $1,000. The vote was 85-16. All of the “No” votes were cast by Democrats, although some Democrats voted for the bill.
On February 10, the Senate County & Municipal Committee passed the bill.
The Libertarian Party some years ago had filed a lawsuit against the law that required unqualified parties to pay the full $38,000. But the lawsuit lost, even though the U.S. Supreme Court in 1970 had summarily affirmed a decision of a 3-judge court in New York that if the government gives a free list to the qualified parties, it must give the list free to unqualified parties that were petitioning. Having the list is valuable if a party wants to check validity of a petition that it is about to submit. The Alabama existing law gives a free list of the voters to qualified parties.
On February 16, the Indiana Senate Elections Committee passed HB 1359. The bill had already passed the House on January 22. It would add a marker to postal ballots to identify the voter who had cast that ballot. See this story. The purpose is to eliminate that ballot after it had been cast, if the voter who cast it is found ineligible.