Weekly Wrap Up

April 2, 2010

Every week, State of Elections brings you the latest news in state election law.

– A number of states are passing new legislation in an attempt to curb the influence of special interests on judicial elections.

– Wisconsin state Representative Jeff Stone is pushing for voter ID legislation in that state.  The legislature had previously approved a bill that required photo ID at the polls, but the bill was vetoed by the Governor.

– The Maryland legislature is currently debating a bill that would allow 16 year olds to register to vote.

– In California, two candidates for state attorney general are preparing for a court battle over what titles they can attach to their names on the ballot.  Titles and nicknames seem to be a particularly contentious issue lately.  Check out this article from last week about Conrad “Colonel”  Reynolds and “Porky” Kimbrell, and their efforts to put their nicknames on the ballot.  Spoiler alert: Colonel = flagrant violation of election law, Porky = perfectly legal.

– Here’s an interesting post about the 2010 census and redistricting from the Balkinization blog.