On May 23, the Oregon House passed HB 2004, which provides for ranked choice voting in partisan primaries, and general elections, for statewide offices (including presidential electors) and U.S. House. The vote was 35-24.
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On May 23, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed HF 1830, which makes it more difficult for a group to become or remain a qualified party. The old law required a vote of 5% for any statewide office at either of the last two elections. The new law raises that to 8%. This gives Minnesota the fourth highest vote percentage in the nation for qualified status. Only Alabama, New Jersey and Virginia have higher percentages.
In addition a party must have an organization in approximately two-thirds of the counties, or alternatively in approximately two-thirds of the state legislative districts. The new law is vague about what that means.
The new definition of a qualified party does not take effect until after the November 2024 election, so for now the Legal Marijuana Now Party is still ballot-qualified and has its own primary in 2024.
There is an (old) alternate procedure to become or retain qualified status, that the party run a great many candidates. But that law requires a party to run for the statewide state constitutional offices, and those offices aren’t up in 2024, so the Legal Marijuana Now Party can’t make use of that provision. Besides the statewide offices, it requires the party to have at least 45 state representative candidates, 23 state senate candidates, and four U.S. House candidates. Minnesota has 67 State Senators and 134 State Representatives.
Minnesota allows parties to change their names. It is expected that Governor Walz will soon sign a bill legalizing recreational marijuana, so even if the state had not stiffened the definition of a qualified party, probably some of the impetus to keep the Legal Marijuana Now Party going would have receded. But there is still a federal law against marijuana and the party wants to continue in existence to fight the federal law, and it has other goals as well.
Thanks to lobbying by various minor party activists, at least the bill says, “A petition must not be rejected solely because the petition is on paper that is smaller than 8.5 inches wide by 14 inches long.”
On May 23, a lawsuit was filed in the Ohio Supreme Court over the wording of the August 2023 ballot question on the subject of making it more difficult to get an initiative on the ballot, and to pass it. State officials have written the amendment to say that it is “elevating the standards to qualify for and to pass any amendment.” The lawsuit argues that the State Constitution requires the wording of ballot measures to be “impartial.” The lawsuit is filed by opponents of the ballot measure.
The Complaint also criticizes the state’s wording relative to other sentences. Here is the Complaint. The case is State ex rel One Person One Vote v Ohio Ballot Board, 2023-0672. Thanks to Democracy Docket for the link.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections is the only state elections office that provides the progress of checking petitions on its website.
Here is the link that shows the progress of current petitions. The only three party petitions circulating are the No Labels Party, the Constitution Party, and the Forward Party. No Labels already has enough valid signatures, but apparently No Labels will continue to collect more signatures just for safety.
The website shows past petitions as well. The parties currently on the ballot are Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Green.
The California Supreme Court will hear the Santa Monica case over at-large voting for city council members on August 18. The plaintiffs are trying to end at-large elections for city council. They argue that at-large elections in Santa Monica injure Hispanic voters. The State Court of Appeals had upheld the at-large system. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this news.
The case is Pico Neighborhood Association v City of Santa Monica.