Nine Iowa Representatives have introduced HF 148, which makes it impossible for any voter to change party affiliation between 147 days before a primary, and the date of the general election. Current law lets independent voters join a party on primary day if they wish to vote in that party’s primary.
All of the sponsors are Republicans.
This New Jersey Globe story explains that New Jersey allows voters to register into any unqualified party that ever sued the state to obtain registration rights. The seven unqualified parties that have sued the state over registration are the Libertarian, Green, Natural Law, Reform, Constitution, Socialist, and Conservative Parties. Some of these parties no longer exist. But because the legislature has never enacted any law to determine which unqualified parties have registration rights, the original list remains in place, and there is no mechanism for a new minor party to apply for registration rights.
The article mentions the Moderate Party of New Jersey, which is suing the state over fusion. The Moderate Party says the State Constitution requires the state to allow two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate. Ironically, though, as the article mentions, the Moderate Party can’t even have registered members, because there is no law or regulation on how an unqualified party can get registration rights. Of course, the Moderate Party could sue the state to get registration rights, and presumably would win.
On February 16, the Hawaii Senate Judiciary Committee passed SB 1005 by 4-1. It establishes a presidential primary. Hawaii is one of the few states that has never held a government-administered presidential primary.
All qualified parties would be eligible for a presidential primary. Presidential candidates would need 100 signatures plus a filing fee of $3,000, although if they sign a pledge to voluntarily limit their campaign spending, the fee would be $2,675. Indigent presidential candidates could avoid the fee if they submit a petition of one-half of 1% of the registered voters, which would be approximately 4,000 signatures. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
The presidential primary would be in March.
Vermont permits aggregated fusion. It is possible for two parties to nominate the same person, but in order to get the nomination of a second party, the candidate must win that party’s nod by write-ins at the primary. When someone is the nominee of two parties, both party labels are printed on the November ballot next to the candidate’s name, but there is only one square on the ballot to vote for that person, so the voter can’t demonstrate which party is preferred.
Vermont Representative Michael McCarthy (D-St. Albans) has introduced Draft Bill 23-0705. Because it is just a draft bill, not an introduced bill, the text is not available on the Vermont legislature’s website. But according to this article, it would ban fusion. The article says that Representative McCarthy wants to ban fusion because of the 2022 election for Sheriff in Franklin County. That is puzzling, because in that race, only one candidate’s name was printed on the ballot. He was John Grismore, and he had the nomination of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. But he was found to have kicked a prisoner in August 2022, and two individuals then declared write-in candidacies against him. However, Grismore was elected, although he is still facing charges.
It’s not clear why Representative McCarthy wants to ban fusion. His bill also alters the filing deadline for independent candidates, but the article doesn’t say whether he wants to make that deadline earlier, or later. Perhaps he wants to make it later, so that in the Franklin County sheriff’s race, it would have been possible for an independent to have qualified. The current deadline is in early August, which was a little bit too early to allow a new candidate into the race. The article says the draft also would require write-in candidates to file a declaration of candidacy in order for the write-ins to be counted.
On February 16, the Colorado Senate State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee voted 4-1 to postpone consideration of SB23-101 indefinitely. This is the bill that would have eliminated the ability of qualified minor parties to make nominations in convention.
