On March 10, the Washington state Senate Rules Committee killed SB 5209, the bill to make voting mandatory.
8
On March 8, U.S. District Court Judge Mark R. Hornak, an Obama appointee, permanently enjoined Allegheny County from invalidating local initiatives on the basis that the petitions were gathered by someone from outside Pennsylvania. OpenPittsburgh.org v Voye, w.d., 2:16cv-01075. This case is very old and had been filed in 2016.
Here is the 13-page order, which lists other lawsuit decisions recently that struck down bans on out-of-state circulators, including two in 2022, from Maine and Montana. The order does not declare the Pennsylvania ban on out-of-state circulators to be unconstitutional, only because of procedural reasons, but it makes it clear that if the court had been asked to declare it unconstitutional, it would have been declared unconstitutional.
On March 24, the Kansas Senate Federal & State Affairs Committee passed HB 2053, after amending it by stripping out the original content and inserting language setting up a presidential primary. It would be held in March. The presidential primary would only be for the use of parties that are entitled to nominate by primary (i.e., Democrats and Republicans). Smaller qualified parties in Kansas nominate by convention at their own expense.
Another bill, SB 290, which would have set up a presidential primary in May and also moved the non-presidential primary from August to May, failed to pass. That bill would have also moved the independent candidate petition deadline from August to May. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
On March 17, a federal lawsuit was filed against a new Idaho law that removes student ID Cards from the list of approved types of voter ID. March for our Lives v McGrane, 1:23cv-107. The lawsuit was filed the very day the bill was signed into law. Here is the Complaint. Thanks to Democracy Docket for the link.
The MinnPost, a free alternative weekly in Minneapolis, has a lengthy story about the bills to change the definition of a ballot-qualified party from a group that got 5% for a statewide race at either of the last two elections, to 10%.