The Independent Party of Oregon is ballot-qualified, but it doesn’t have registration equal to 5% of the state total. Therefore, it doesn’t qualify for a government primary. But because it is a very large party (with approximately 75,000 registered members) it desires to use a primary instead of a convention to nominate its candidates.

On April 30, the Oregon Secretary of State approved the party’s plan to charge candidates filing fees to run in the party’s privately-administered primary. The Secretary of State says this is permitted as long as the party’s bylaws include the details of the fee, and as long as the fee is applied uniformly to all candidates for the same office.

Candidates that run in government-administered primaries in Oregon pay filing fees to the government, in order to appear on primary ballots.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy DeGiusti has set a June 7 hearing date in Libertarian Party of Oklahoma v Ziriax. This is the ballot access case filed by the Libertarian and Green Parties of Oklahoma. Briefs, or at least statements, will be filed in advance of that hearing date. The two political parties will probably argue that the case is ready for summary judgement on the constitutionality of the March 1 petition deadline.

The Argus-Courier is a weekly newspaper in Petaluma, California, which has existed for almost 150 years. It recently conducted an on-line survey to determine attitudes toward the California Proposition 14 “top-two” (called an “open primary” by its supporters) system. On-line polls are not scientific, and furthermore the sample size was small. Nevertheless, the poll showed that more people are opposed to the system than in favor of it. See here.

Last year California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill to make it illegal for anyone to pay registration workers on a per-registration card basis. However, the same bill has been re-introduced. Assemblymember Richard Pan, and Senator Lou Correa, have amended a non-election law bill that already passed the Assembly so that it imposes the ban. It is AB 2058, and will probably have a hearing in the Senate Elections Committee in June. If passed, it would take effect on January 1, 2013.

The only way qualified parties can remain ballot-qualified in California is by having registration equal to 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, which currently is 103,004 members (however, this doesn’t go into effect until November 2014). Neither the Libertarian Party, nor the Peace & Freedom Party, have that many registered members. They only feasible way for parties to increase their registration substantially has always been to pay people on a per-registration card basis. Persuading strangers on the street to register into a minor party is very difficult work, and paying on a per-registration basis is the only realistic way to substantially increase a party’s registration.

The reason for the bill is that recently, Republican Party activists hired a company to increase the number of registered Republicans, and the people who were hired committed fraud. It does not necessarily follow that the fraud would have been prevented if the ban on paying per-registration card had been in effect.

The Sixth Circuit will hear arguments in Green Party of Tennessee v Hargett on July 25, Wednesday, at 9 a.m. The hearing will be in Cincinnati. The state hopes to persuade the court to remove the Constitution and Green Parties from the ballot. There will probably also be argument on the part of the U.S. District Court decision that said states must give all parties an equal chance to be listed first on the ballot.

On May 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia upheld section five of the national Voting Rights Act. Section five is the part of the act that requires certain states and counties to get permission from the U.S. Justice Department before changing any election law. The vote was 2-1. Here is the decision. The decision was written by Judge David Tatel, a Clinton appointee, and co-signed by Judge Thomas Griffith, a Bush Jr. appointee. The dissent is by Judge Stephen Williams, a Reagan appointee. The case is Shelby County, Alabama v Holder, 11-5256.

The same panel also issued an opinion in LaRoque v Holder, 11-5349. That opinion is unanimous. That is also a challenge to the Voting Rights Act, brought by voters in Kinston, North Carolina, who were dissatisfied that the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department had refused to let Kinston change from partisan city elections to non-partisan city elections. After this lawsuit was filed, the Voting Rights Section changed its mind and let Kinston make that change. The ruling in this case says that it is now moot. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

Alabama’s legislature is now in special session. Senator Scott Beason (R-Gardendale) has introduced a bill to provide for registration by party in Alabama. By coincidence, in the special session, the new bill is SB 15, which happens to be the number of this year’s ballot access bill in the regular session (the regular session is now over, so the original SB 15 is dead).

The new SB 15 says that only registered party members may vote in primaries. This is a legal flaw, because in 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that states have no authority to tell parties whether to let independents vote in their primaries or not. Parties decide that for themselves.

The new SB 15 has been sent to the Taxation & Finance Committee, but is not scheduled for a hearing. However, the bill probably has substantial support, because in order for this bill to be introduced, Senator Beason had to have unanimous consent. Election law bills are not on the Governor’s call for the special session, so the special session can only consider election law bills that have unanimous consent to be introduced. It seems conceivable that Senator Cam Ward, author of the ballot access bill, might attempt to gain unanimous consent to re-introduce his ballot access bill. It did pass the Senate and the House committee in the regular session, so it has substantial support.

The new SB 15, on party registration, seems to imply that voters could register into unqualified parties. It has no authorization for any party to reject any voter’s registration. Current law in Alabama gives parties the ability to refuse to let individuals run in its primaries for political reasons. If this bill passed, and someone registers into a party, and files in its primary, that might make it impossible for major parties to continue to exclude certain candidates from their primaries on political grounds, if that person is a registered member of that party.

The bill does not address the question of whether someone must be a registered member of a party in order to file in its primary.

The author of the voter registration bill, Senator Beason, did vote in favor of the regular session’s ballot access bill. Perhaps he will amend his bill to include ballot access improvements as well.

The Washington Post has this lengthy op-ed by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, “Want to End Partisan Politics? Here’s What Won’t Work – And What Will.”

Mann, a Democrat, is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Ornstein, a Republican, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. They recently wrote a book together, “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks” about the behavior of Congress in recent years. They deplore hyper-partisanship and the tendency of many members of Congress to put party above country. The book also suggests that Republican members of Congress bear considerably more of the blame than Democratic members.

The op-ed is based on the book. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

On May 17, Americans Elect announced that it will not nominate anyone for President this year. The announcement came at 5 p.m. eastern time. Here is the text of the press release, courtesy of Talking Points Memo.

The last sentence makes it clear that Americans Elect is in no way disbanding itself. Americans Elect leaders feel their party will be active in future elections. There are about twelve states in which the party will be on the ballot automatically in 2014, even if it has no nominees for any office in 2012. Also Americans Elect, at least for now, expects to continue petitioning in Texas and Idaho, the two states where the drive is quite far along, but isn’t finished.

As of April 30, the Oklahoma State Election Board has determined the number of registered voters in each party: Democratic 942,388; Republican 850,560; Americans Elect 5; independent 234,141.

The Oklahoma voter registration form has a blank line in the “political party” section, so anyone can register into any party, by writing in a selection in the blank line. However, the state will only tally the number of registered voters for the qualified parties, plus they will tally the number in an unqualified party if it has been on the ballot in the previous four years. No party has been ballot-qualified in Oklahoma other than the Democrats and Republicans since November 2000, except that Americans Elect qualified in March 2012.

On May 16, U.S. District Court Judge Charles C. Lovell, a Reagan appointee, struck down two Montana laws that regulate campaign advertising. In both cases, the reason is that the laws are too vague. The case is Lair v Murry, 6:12-12.

One law says: “printed election material that includes information about another candidate’s voting record must include a disclosure of contrasting votes known to have been made by the same candidate on the same issue of closely related in time.” The other law makes it unlawful “for a person to misrepresent a candidate’s public voting record or any other matter that is relevant to the issues of the campaign with knowledge that the assertion is false.”

On May 17, the Michigan State Court of Appeals held a hearing in the lawsuit over whether a referendum petition is valid. The State Board of Canvassers had invalidated the petition, even though it had 200,000 signatures, because of an allegation that the font size on the petition was incorrect. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link. Supporters of the referendum filled the courtroom.

Gary Johnson’s campaign has released its first video ad, since Johnson obtained the Libertarian presidential nomination. See it here.

On May 16, the Alabama legislative session ended. SB 15, the ballot access reform bill, did not pass. The bill made more progress this year than it ever has before. It passed the Senate overwhelmingly and the House committee unanimously. But it never got a House vote.

The legislature is now in a special session, but no bills can be dealt with in the special session that were not named on the Governor’s list, unless the bill sponsor gets unanimous consent to introduce it.

On May 17, five members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bill to protect certain kinds of voting rights. The lead sponsor is John Lewis of Georgia. His bill, which doesn’t have a bill number yet, is co-sponsored by James Clyburn of South Carolina, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Robert Brady of Pennsylvania, and John Conyers of Michigan. All are Democrats.

The bill can be seen here. It requires states to permit ex-felons to register to vote in federal elections, and it requires states to provide for election-day registration. It requires states to let individuals to file voter registration forms if they are at least sixteen years old, even though those individuals could not vote until they are 18. The bill requires states to take certain steps to make it easier to register to vote.

The bill is somewhat similar to HR 108, by John Conyers, which was introduced last year but which has not made any headway.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune has this story about an obscure procedure on the Americans Elect web page, to enable ordinary members of Americans Elect to send in feedback on what Americans Elect should do next.

On May 9, the Ninth Circuit heard oral argument in Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County v Bowen, 11-55316. This case challenges a California state law that makes it illegal for petitioners to work outside their home district, when they are circulating petitions to place candidates on the ballot for district office. The law also makes it illegal for petitioners to work outside their home county.

The panel consisted of Judges Harry Pregerson, Susan P. Graber, and Marsha S. Berzon. The judges seemed to believe that it is wrong for the California Secretary of State to say in court that she doesn’t enforce the requirement, when her web page says she does enforce it. One of the judges even said to the state’s attorney, “I suggest you advise your client to stop lying on the documents she promulgates to the public.”

The Oklahoma House has now appointed members to the Conference Committee that will consider the final shape of HB 1058, the bill to ease ballot access for newly-qualifying parties. The House members of the Conference Committee recently met and voted to continue to advocate for the original bill, which lowers the number of signatures in all election years to exactly 22,500 signatures.

The Senate had passed that bill but had amended it so it makes no changes at all in presidential election years, although the Senate version of the bill does improve ballot access in mid-term years. Thanks to Micah Gamino for this news.

On May 16, the Maine legislature passed LD 1826, which eliminates the portion of the state income tax form that lets taxpapers send a small contribution to the political party of the taxpayers’ choice. The bill has been sent to the Governor.

This is bad news for the Green Party, which in the recent past has received approximately half its budget from the income tax receipts. In some years during the past decade, the Green Party has received more money from the fund than the Republican Party has.

Also on May 16, the legislature passed LD 1882, which provides for a study of whether Maine should re-enact provision for a presidential primary, and if so, when it should be held. If Maine brings back its presidential primary, it is likely that the state will try to have it very early in the year.

On May 15, the Federal Election Commission finally ruled on the extent to which a candidate for federal office may receive additional contributions from contributors who had already given the maximum, when the candidate’s campaign treasurer embezzles the money from the original contribution. The FEC ruled that if a contribution was deposited into any bank account controlled by the treasurer, that money cannot be replaced with a new contribution.

The ruling had been requested by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, back in January. The only relief the FEC gave her is that if the original contribution was never deposited into any bank account connected with the campaign treasurer, then that contribution is deemed never to have existed, and the campaign can seek a new contribution.