Gov. Pat McCrory signed Senate Bill 403 into law. The bill requires treasurers of political committees with contributions, expenditures, or loans totaling more than $10,000 in an election cycle to electronically file campaign finance reports.

North Carolina law already requires electronic filing for political committees making contributions in excess of $5,000 to candidates for statewide office or making independent expenditures in excess of $5,000 affecting contests for statewide office. This provision of the bill takes effect January 1, 2017.

Senate Bill 403 further permits counties, municipalities, and special districts to schedule special elections only when a general or primary election is already scheduled or when there is a general election requiring all county precincts to be open. This provision of the bill takes effect January 1, 2015, and applies to all special elections held on or after that date.

A special election will be held on Friday, August 15, for residents of the rural Puna region. Two voting precincts in the region were closed during Saturday’s primary as Tropical Storm Iselle battered the Big Island.

Roughly 8,000 registered voters who were unable to cast ballots will likely decide the outcome of the hotly contested Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. The race between U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz and U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa remains too close to call.

Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a special election will take place on November 4, 2014 to fill the seat vacated by Representative Eric Cantor.

Representative Cantor, who lost the Republican primary election on June 10, recently announced that he would resign from Congress effective August 18.

Cantor has been the representative from Virginia’s 7th District for the last seven terms.

Photo of Gov. Terry McAuliffe by Kate Wellington on Wikimedia Commons.

A special election will be held for three state judicial seats recently vacated by sitting judges. The state Board of Elections set the special election to coincide with the general election on November 4, 2014.

The seats up for election are for the Court of Appeals, the Superior Court in Mecklenburg County, and the Superior Court in Alamance County.

Judicial races in North Carolina are nonpartisan, statewide races, where all judicial candidates appear on the statewide ballot with no party affiliation. Each race is determined by a plurality of votes.

Candidates must file with the Board of Elections by noon on August 8, 2014, in order to appear on the special election ballot.

A state judge ordered the Florida Legislature to redraw two congressional districts by August 15, 2014. In Rene Romo, et al v. Ken Detzner, et al, Judge Terry Lewis of the Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee found the redistricting maps drawn by the Legislature for the 5th and 10th Congressional Districts to be created “in contravention of the constitutional mandates” found in Article III, Section 20 of the Florida Constitution.

In addition to a new redistricting map drawn by the Legislature, the secretary of state and the supervisor of elections must present a proposed special election schedule by August 15, 2014.

A hearing is scheduled August 20, 2014, where objections to the proposed map and special election schedule will be heard. The judge is still tasked with determining whether a special election is necessary before a new Congress takes office in January 2015. While it is not an option to use a newly drawn map for the upcoming November 4, 2014, elections, Lewis pointed to the possibility of pushing the general election date back to allow for a special election in 2014 for any affected districts.

Republican leaders are considering an appeal to the ruling. In the interim, Lewis’ ruling forces the Legislature to convene a special session to revise its map by the August 15 deadline.

Today Texas Gov. Perry announced a special election will be held September 9, 2014, for the State Senate District 28 seat.

State Sen. Robert Duncan resigned on July 3, 2014, in order to serve as chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. The winner of the election will serve out the unexpired term of Duncan, which expires in 2017.

Duncan has served in both the state House and the Senate since 1993.

Gov. Mike Beebe has signed a bill allowing him not to call a special election to fill the lieutenant governor’s office.

Senate Bill 139, now Act 210, allows the governor to forgo a special election to fill a vacancy in the lieutenant governor’s office when the vacancy occurs within 10 months of a general election, if holding a special election would be impractical or burdensome.

Mark Darr left the lieutenant governor’s office vacant after being fined $11,000 by the state Ethics Commission for misuse of campaign contributions and taxpayer dollars.

Governor Pat McCrory drew widespread criticism for his decision to leave the 12th Congressional District seat formerly held by Mel Watt vacant until the regularly scheduled general election in November of this year. In a possible attempt to appease his critics, McCrory has called a belated special election to fill the vacant seat.

The special election will be held on the same day as the general election, consistent with McCrory’s budgetary concerns related to holding the special election on a different day. Because the two elections will occur on the same day, most candidates will be on the ballot twice.

Those candidates running in the special election will serve the remainder of the term expiring in 2014. Those candidates running in the general election, a slate nearly identical to that of the special election, will succeed the prevailing candidate in the special election and serve a two year term beginning in 2015.

Only two candidates chose not to participate in both elections, Republican Leon Threatt and Democrat Rajive Patel. Threatt and Patel will only appear on the general election ballot.

Photo of Governor Pat McCrory courtesy of Hal Goodtree on Wikimedia Commons.

Lawmakers have passed a measure to keep the lieutenant governor’s office vacant until the November general election.

Senate Bill 139 allows Gov. Mike Beebe to postpone a special election for the vacancy left by former Lt. Gov. Mark Darr, who left office following $11,000 in fines for ethics violations.

The bill awaits Beebe’s signature.

A Missouri judge recently denied a request to compel Gov. Jay Nixon to set special legislative elections. County Circuit Judge Dan Green issued a one-sentence written opinion but provided no reasoning for the ruling. After the lawsuit was filed in January, Nixon set special elections to fill three of the four vacancies. He has not called an election to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Ryan McKenna.

McKenna left office in December after being appointed by Nixon to serve as Labor Department Director.

Photo of Gov. Jay Nixon courtesy of Bernard Pollack on Wikimedia Commons.

Lawmakers agreed by resolution to consider a bill aimed at avoiding a special election for the lieutenant governor’s office, which was vacated by former Lt. Gov. Mark Darr following ethics violations. Senate Bill 139 would enable Gov. Mike Beebe to call a special election “as soon as practicable” if calling a special election within 150 days of the vacancy would be impracticable or burdensome.

The bill was introduced in an effort to avoid the cost of a special election until the general election on November 4, 2014. The resolutions required a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate because they occurred during the fiscal session.

Gov. Mary Fallin called for special elections to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Jerry Ellis. Ellis left two years remaining in his four-year term because state legislators can serve a maximum of 12 years.

The special elections will be held at the same time as the state’s regularly scheduled elections. The primary will be held on June 24, a potential runoff would be August 26, and the general election will take place on November 4.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon called an August 5 special election to fill three vacant seats in the state House of Representatives. The announcement came after being confronted with a lawsuit seeking to compel him to call special elections for four legislative seats. He has yet to set an election date to fill the Senate vacancy.

On February 13 House Republican Mike Moon filed articles of impeachment against Nixon for the delay in filling all four vacancies – a delay he says has denied representation for almost 300,000 Missourians.

A special election for the Massachusetts Fifth Suffolk Representative District has been called to fill the vacancy caused by the expulsion of Carlos Tony Henriquez.

The Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin announced the special primary election will be held on April 1, 2014. The general election will follow on April 29, 2014.

Henriquez, sentenced to jail last month for assault and battery, was expelled on February 6, 2014, by the House of Representatives.