Referendum

Folks in Will County, Illinois, have been debating whether to hold a referendum on the coroner. The position is currently elected, but the family in a recently botched autopsy has pushed for making it an appointed post. At this point, it appears no referendum will make the ballot.

The Secretary of State of Oregon was no fan of an effort to qualify a referendum to reverse the state's domestic partnership law. And the number of valid signatures barely met the requirement. So he went through the signatures and disqualified some 200 signatures that were determined not to match the voter signatures on registration card.

Now the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Secretary of State's actions were lawful. It's a tough call. While signature fraud remains a threat in the petition circulation game, it's a good bet that many or even most of the disqualified signatures were valid. How's that? People's signatures often change over the years. And for that reason, here's some free advice. If you haven't changed your voter registration in the past 5 years, it's a good idea to go in and update it, with a fresh signature. I've observed the counting of absentee ballots in California, and election officials are often checking against voter registration signatures from 30 or 40 years ago. If signatures don't match, the votes don't get counted.

Evo Morales triumphs in a referendum he sought on whether he should remain in office. The victory should give him some political momentum in his battle with leaders of wealthy provinces who have been resisting his economic plans.

But provincial governors who oppose Morales also survived the plebiscite. And some of these provinces appear to have backed Morales' removal. (He won overwhelmingly in poorer parts of the country). So Bolivia remains divided.

USC's Initiative & Referendum Institute has released their excellent and thorough review of ballot measures across the country. The headline is the number of measures involving social issues. The file is a PDF attachment to this post.

MANCHESTER CONGESTED: Manchester, England, is preparing to hold a referendum on a plan to establish a congestion pricing system for traffic in the city. Such plans, which charge motorists on a sliding scale based on the traffic conditions and time of day, have gained favor in Europe and are being talked about in the U.S., most notably in New York City.

MINDANAO REFERENDUM: Muslim rebels and the Philippine government have agreed to hold a referendum in Mindanao to allow citizens there to determine whether they want to become part of the county's existing Muslim autonomous region, according to news reports.

ECUADOR CONSTITUTION: The referendum on a new constitution for Ecuador is set for Sept. 28. The document has provisions that likely will produce more votes in the tiny South American country. Under the new constitution, the president would be able to ask voters to dissolve Congress, and the Congress would be able to ask voters to kick out the president.

The Irish voted down the European Union's Lisbon Treaty last month, 53-47. While European officials have called for another vote, a new poll suggests only 24 percent of Irish voters want such a second ballot. And if there were a second ballot, support for the treaty would reach only 38 percent of the voter.

Houston County in the great state of Georgia is permitting its citizens to vote on whether to pay for a weather warning system.

In what is being portrayed as evidence of surging Islamophobia in the home of direct democracy, Swiss conservatives have qualified a ballot initiative that would add a ban on minarets to the country's constitution. Switzerland, a country of 7 million people, has more than 300,000 Muslims but only three minarets.

SARKO SAYS IRISH WILL HAVE TO VOTE AGAIN on Lisbon Treaty. The French president -- and EU president for the next six, very long months -- said this yesterday in Paris. He intends to travel to Ireland to instruct the Irish people in the error of their ways next week.

SPAIN SEEKS TO BLOCK BASQUE VOTE: The Spanish government has filed a lawsuit seeking to block a Basque referendum on autonomy that is seen as a step toward independence. The argument is that under Spain's constitutional, only the federal government may authorize a referendum. The Basque law establishing the referendum took effect yesterday, so even before anyone votes, Spain has a constitutional problem on its hands.

LITHUANIAN MPS SEEK REFERENDUM TO BLOCK EU: The European Union has agreed to the closure of a Soviet-era nuclear power plant that provides much of Lithuania's power. But Lithuania's parliament wants to delay that closure by putting a referendum on the national ballot in October.

WALES TO VOTE? Wales, which has some power to govern itself, is discussing whether and how to permit referenda there. The argument is a bit complicated, but so is the United Kingdom.

Ohio has one of the tighest deadlines for collecting signatures on an initiative or referendum petition -- 90 days. But there's a problem. Each measure requires the attorney general to issue a summary. But there's no legal requirement on the attorney general to produce such summaries in a timely manner. An AG could delay and delay -- running out the 90-day clock for collecting signatures. In an editorial, The Cleveland Plain-Dealer says this is wrong.