Governor John Kasich signed HB 369 on Thursday, December 15, 2011. The bill consolidated Ohio’s June 12, 2012 primary for the President and U.S. House of Representatives into the state’s March 6, 2012 primary.

The bill also established new boundaries for the state’s 16 congressional districts to settle a dispute over the previous boundaries established earlier this year.

The Ohio House and Senate have passed HB 369, a measure to consolidate the state’s two 2012 primaries into a single primary date, scheduled for March 6, 2012.

The state originally scheduled two primaries, a March 6, 2012 primary for county partisan offices, the state legislature, and the available U.S. Senate seat, and a June 12, 2012 primary for the President and U.S. House of Representatives, in order to give state lawmakers more time to settle differences concerning Ohio’s map for legislative redistricting.

The bill now moves to the desk of Governor John Kasich for his signature.

Keeping up with the campaign trails of the 2012 presidential candidates will be a lot easier with the new “Campaigns Check-In” feature that Foursquare and NBC are teaming up to create.

The new feature will appear on the recently launched NBCpolitics.com and will allow visitors to see where each of the GOP candidates are making campaign stops in real-time, and where they’ve been throughout their entire election campaign.

Also, for the Foursquare users out there, you will be able to recieve unique, co-branded political badges from NBC News beginning in 2012.

Learn more in NBC Maps the 2012 Election Campaign Trail With Foursquare by Alex Fitzpatrick.

The American League of Lobbyists recently posted two videos on their YouTube channel from an October event where they invited Tim Farnum and Peter Overby to speak about Citizens United and soft money in the 2012 elections. ALL President Howard Marlowe was the moderator.

According to the site, “On Friday, October 28th, 2011 the American League of Lobbyists hosted two award winning journalists, Tim Farnum of the Washington Post and Peter Overby of NPR, for a discussion about the role that ‘soft money’ will play in the 2012 elections.”

Part 1

Part 2

Soon after the successful overturning of Senate Bill 5, the controversial collective bargaining law, advocates of fair elections in Ohio are looking to overturn a second piece of legislation that they have called a “voter suppression” bill.

Supporters of this bill, HB 194, believe that this bill will create a more efficient electoral process in Ohio, decrease incidences of fraud due to absentee and provisional ballots, and effectively utilize technology in elections.

The opponents of the bill, largely Democrats and voting rights activists, collected 307,358 signatures achieving their goal of allowing voters to decide on the fate of the bill. They are opposed to several provisions in the bill, most notably those that shorten the time frame for early voting from five weeks to three weeks, eliminate most weekend voting hours, and drop a requirement that poll workers tell voters when they are in the wrong precinct in a multi-precinct voting location.

Voters will decide on HB 194 in November of 2012, preserving the existing election rules through the 2012 presidential elections which gave Democrats the edge in the 2008 elections when Obama won Ohio by only 4 points.

Read more in this article on Cleveland.com.

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will hear arguments on January 9 regarding Congressional and State Legislature districts in Texas. This has put Texas campaigning and fundraising in a state of confusion.

You can find the news coverage here:

“Redistricting Orders Throw Texas Politics Into Disarray” by Ross Ramsey in the Texas Tribune.

“Texas Elections Are in Limbo Over Redistricting Issue” by Manny Fernandez in the New York Times.

“Judges to offer guidance to party leaders after Supreme Court blocks maps” by Tim Eaton in the American-Statesman.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal is expected to call for a special election in January to replace Georgia House Representative Len Walker who has accepted a ministerial position with a north Georgia chapel.

Tom Kirby will campaign for Walker’s District 107 seat. Kirby said Walker is expected to resign his term at the year-end and the governor will then call for a special election.

The seat will have to be contested again in November 2012 under the new District 114.

The change is a result of redistricting.

Governor Dannel P. Malloy has issued a writ of special election setting January 10, 2012 as the date to fill the vacant seat in Connecticut’s 24th house district.

The seat became vacant after former state representative Timothy O’Brien left the position November 15, 2011. O’Brien, who had represented the district since 2003, resigned his seat after he was elected to the position of mayor in the city of New Britain, Connecticut during the 2011 general election held on November 8.

Governor Steve Beshear has called for a special election on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 to fill the vacant 82nd House District seat.

The seat became vacant after former state Rep. Dewayne Bunch resigned his position last month as a result of head injuries he obtained while breaking up a fight at Whitley County High School. Bunch, who taught at the school, was left in “extremely critical” condition following the April 12, 2011 altercation.

Regina Bunch, wife to the former representative, has been named by the local Republican Party to be the party’s nominee. Local Democrat officials have stated they currently have no plans to pick a nominee to oppose Bunch.

GEORGIA: A special election to fill the state House District 68 seat of Tim Bearden will be held December 6, according to an announcement by Georgia’s Secretary of State.

Bearden resigned his seat last month after being appointed director of the Georgia Public Safety Training Center by Governor Nathan Deal.

If a runoff is needed, it will be held January 3, 2012.

• NCSL has updated their 50 state chart of state ethics commission information, with its interactive map, list of contact information, and detailed profiles.

• Politico published “Political advertising data may go online” by Brooks Boliek. According to the article, “The Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote Thursday on a notice of proposed rule making that could require broadcasters to post information about political ads and other data on the Internet.”

• Arizona’s clean elections program made the news yet again. “The Arizona Legislature may have to go back to the drawing board if it wants voters in 2012 to kill the state’s public-funded Clean Elections campaign-finance program,” reports the Arizona Republic in “Judge rejects Arizona campaign finance measure” by Alia Beard Rau.

• Read what the feds are tweeting right this moment on “The Feed” by Nextgov.

• Politico offers today “Ex-FEC chief: Lift money limits” by Dave Levinthal, where he begins by quoting former Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner: “The United States should take a cue from the Commonwealth of Virginia — or the Cayman Islands, for that matter — and simply do away with limits on campaign contributions.”

• Remember “We the People,” the White House’s new online channel to offer your own petitions for better government? TechPresident gives us an update on whether the platform is living up to its promise to be a true place of genuine communication with the White House. Here is the blog post: “White House Begins Responses to ‘We the People‘” by Nick Judd.

Montana Commissioner of Political Practices David Gallik is now working on clarifying the rules for using social media in political campaigns. A few complaints have emerged in Montana over  the use of email and social media in campaigns, and the commissioner  recognizes the existing laws were crafted primarily for campaigns using print media, television, and radio.

In the Missoulian article “Montana political practices office to address social media campaign complaints,” journalist Keila Szpaller spoke with Gallik about what comes next for the state. The article also explores how the use of social media in political campaigns, and its regulation, can bring into focus the tension between personal privacy and the demands of an open democratic process.

Governor John Kasich signed House Bill 318 into law the evening of Friday, October 21, 2011. House Bill 318 creates two separate primary elections in the state during 2012. The first primary election, for county partisan offices, the state legislature, and the available U.S. Senate seat, will be held on March 6, 2012, while the second primary date, for the President and U.S. House of Representatives, will be June 12, 2012.

The bill is intended to give state lawmakers more time to settle differences concerning Ohio’s recently passed map for legislative redistricting, as a Democrat-backed coalition seeks to place the redistricting measure before Ohio’s voters for a possible repeal in 2012 if a compromise cannot be reached.