On March 16, the Arkansas Senate State Agencies & Governmental Affairs Committee passed SB 277, the bill to lower the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote (about 27,000 signatures) to exactly 10,000 signatures. The bill had failed in that committee in February, but was brought back.
Georgia holds general election run-offs (except for president) if no one gets 50% of the vote. Two bills to change that have failed to advance, and it is now too late for them to pass. HB 419 would have provided that anyone who gets 45% is elected. SR 211 would have created a joint legislative committee to study run-offs.
On March 3, the Hawaii Senate passed SB 47, which deals with the order of candidates on the ballot. Existing law uses alphabetical order of candidate surnames. The bill changes that for a random procedure to determine which candidates are listed first.
This Vox story by Christian Paz says that independent U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema does have a chance to be re-elected next year, even if she is not a major party nominee.
On March 16, some Florida voting rights groups filed a federal lawsuit against the Florida law that does not permit anyone to submit a voter registration application that doesn’t bear a “wet ink” signature, except through a Motor Vehicle registration office. Vote.org v Byrd, n.d., 4:23cv-111. Here is the Complaint.
The case is assigned to Judge Allen Winsor, a Trump appointee.
The plaintiffs took the considerable trouble to sue each of Florida’s county elections supervisors, as well as the Secretary of State. That is because past experience in Florida voting rights cases have shown that if only the Secretary of State is sued, the Secretary of State will argue that he is not the proper defendant.
