On July 31, U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), Joe Lieberman (Independent Dem-Connecticut) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) said they will introduce a bill, to determine when presidential primaries and caucuses should be held. The bill has not yet been introduced.

The bill would divide the U.S. into 4 regions (west, south, midwest and east). A lottery would be held in the year before presidential elections. The lottery would decide which region would have its primaries and caucuses in March, which in April, which in May, and which in June. New Hampshire and Iowa would be permitted to be earlier than March.

When the text of the bill is released, it will be interesting to see how it defines “political party”. Typically, members of Congress who write these bills never think about minor parties. There is also some doubt that the government can tell parties when to hold caucuses, since caucuses are organized and financed by the parties themselves, not the government.

OKIES (Oklahoma Coalition of Independents), the parent group of Oklahomans for Ballot Access Reform (OBAR), is holding a meeting in Oklahoma City on Sunday, August 5, at 4 pm. The location is the Oklahoma City Downtown Library, 300 Park Ave., the Jim Thorpe Room. The proposed initiative to ease the ballot access laws will be discussed. Contributions to the initiative are being raised. If you wish to help, please send a check to OBAR, PO Box 14042, Tulsa Ok 74159-1042. A fund-raising letter is about to be sent to a large mailing list.

According to Steve Gordon’s blog, Ed Thompson may seek the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. See here. Also thanks to ThirdPartyWatch.

On July 31, Connecticut’s Secretary of State announced that no mechanical “lever” voting machines will be used anywhere in the state in the future. This leaves New York as the only state which still expects to use mechanical “lever” voting machines in the future. The old mechanical machines have been rejected because they don’t leave an audit paper trail and because some voters with particular disabilities cannot use them.

Mechanical voting machines have been harmful to minor parties and independent candidates, for decades. It is extremely difficult to cast a write-in, with that type of machine. Also, use of mechanical voting machines encourages elections officials to use party column or party row ballots. By contrast, the optical-scan ballots that will replace the Connecticut machines have a friendlier format. Each office is presented as a separate item. This encourages the voter to make an independent choice, as he or she goes from office to office. This, in turn, makes it easier for minor parties to poll a large vote for the less important offices, because people don’t usually care very much which party wins an office like State Treasurer or Auditor.

A final disadvantage for minor parties with “lever” machines has been the tendency for minor party votes not to get reported at all. This is not because of mechanical failure, but the older versions required human beings (after the polls have closed) to examine the back of the machine and manually record the number of votes for each candidate. Over decades, there have been many documented instances when the human beings reading the counters in the back of the machine simply didn’t bother to record the numbers for minor party candidates, sometimes because of the “reason” that their votes were so few anyway, it wasn’t worth bothering to record them.

Two agencies of the federal government always publish compilations of the vote for candidates for Congress. Since 1920 the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives has been doing so, and since 1976 the Federal Election Commission has also done so. The Clerk’s publication is called “Statistics of the Congressional Election of (such-and-such a date)” and the FEC’s book is called “Federal Elections (year).”

Normally, both books have been published within 6 months of the election. It has now been over 8 months since the election, and neither agency has published its book. Thanks to Tom Jones for this news.

The North Carolina legislature will probably adjourn on Thursday evening, August 2. It is still possible, but very unlikely, that either bill affecting the electoral college will pass. The two bills are SB 353 (each US House district chooses its own elector) and SB 954 (National Popular Vote plan).

According to an employee of the Illinois legislature, the two interesting election law bills that were supposed to have been passed by July 31, will each get an extension into August. The bills are HB 1685 (the National Popular Vote Plan for presidential elections) and HB 1752 (timid ballot access reform).

Since the Illinois legislature is operating in special session, deadlines for enacting bills are in force. Both bills have passed both houses of the Illinois legislature, but both are in slightly different versions, so concurrence is needed.

The Labor Party was founded nationally in 1990, but it has never had any candidates for partisan office. It qualified for the ballot in South Carolina in 2005 but ran no candidates in 2006. However, it expects to run 3 to 5 candidates for state office in South Carolina in 2008. Roger Odachowski, founder and president of one local of the Firefighters Union, is considering running for State Senate in Anderson County.

On July 30, the Reform Institute issued a press release, calling attention to its excellent amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in N.Y. State Bd. of Elections v Lopez Torres. Both the amicus, and the press release, discuss the dismal state of New York state ballot access. See the press release here.

The Reform Institute is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, and is associated with U.S. Senator John McCain. It is almost ten years old and has sometimes been a friend of minor parties and independent candidates, and sometimes a foe. It has supported federal campaign finance laws that make it very difficult for new parties to attract large contributions, and it has sometimes supported “top-two” election systems that keep minor party members off the general election ballot. On the other hand, it has consistently condemed severe ballot access petition requirements.

In early August, the Tennessee Libertarian, Green and Constitution Parties will file a lawsuit, challenging the constitutionality of Tennessee’s ballot access laws for new or previously unqualified parties. Tennessee requires a petition signed by 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote. The petition must say that the signers are members. The petition is due 4 months before the primary.

No group has complied with this requirement since 1968. Tennessee and New Jersey are the only two states in which only the Democratic and Republican Parties have been qualified parties, during the last 25 years.

Tennessee is in the 6th circuit. Last year the 6th circuit ruled that Ohio’s new party petition requirement, which hadn’t been used successfully since 2000, is too difficult. That Ohio precedent will control this case.