The Michigan U.S. House seat, 13th district, has been vacant all year, ever since John Conyers resigned in the middle of his term. Michigan election officials refused to call a special election early in 2018, saying it was cheaper to wait until the August 7 primary to let parties nominate for the remainder of the term, and then to let the November 2018 election fill that short term. At that point the term would be less than three months long.
Brenda Jones, a candidate for the short term seat, and also the full term 2019-2020, had the bad luck to win the Democratic primary for the short term, but to lose the primary for the 2019-2020 full term. She is now President of the Detroit City Council. According to this story, she is unlikely to want to give up her service on the city council, just so she can be a member of Congress for the short period November 2018-January 2019. But she can’t do much about it. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
Once she checks out the retirement perks she won’t feel too bad!
What ???
Be a USA Rep HACK for 1 day and get $$$ millions in USA taxpayer LOOT per year for life ???
— plus Detroit taxpayer LOOT (at least pennies – after the Detroit bankruptcy (due to earlier Looters for 100 plus years) ???
The whole mess —
one more example/reason to have candidate/incumbent replacement lists.
NO more legis special elections.
The same thing happened in a senate race in California. In a heavily Democratic district, the Democrat who advance to the general election was first on the ballot. The Republican candidate got the same support regardless of position. The ballot draw determined the winner.
And there are folks who believe that voters can rank candidates. LOL.
How many messed up ballots in REAL RCV elections —
SF, CA
Maine
Etc. ???
—-
Legis elections — CANDIDATE rank order lists – made public before election about 56 days.
ANY mess up = math moron candidates OFF ballots.
The Constitution requires elections for House members. You can’t just appoint one.
If I recall the process of Melissa Gilbert dropping her candidacy 2 years ago, it requires a little bit of effort to drop a candidacy and get replaced
THIS LIST IS ALSO ABOUT ***REFORMS*** —
TO END A-L-L OF THE LONG TIME ANTI-DEMOCRACY TYRANT R-O-T IN THE USA AND STATE REGIMES.
SEE THE 1776-1865 MAJOR STRUGGLE TO END SLAVERY IN THE USA AND STATE REGIMES.
Ms. Jones can simply NOT show up in Devil City —
IE – NOT take the USA Rep oath of office.
IE – be one more footnote in the current 2 year gerrymander term.
About ZERO chance that the Elephant House Speaker will send the House chief cop to drag her to Devil City.
NET result – gerrymander district will have had NO USA Rep for about 13 months.
Thus – REFORM – Const Amdt —
one more example/reason to have candidate/incumbent replacement lists.
I’d like to know what was going through the voters’ minds when they did this.
Perhaps need to see if ballots had the same format in all precincts in the gerrymander district ???
Two separate boxes/groups on ballots — regular term and short term.
IE – NOT sure where short term box/group was on ballots.
NOT sure about name rotations on ballots.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2018/08/08/jones-resign-council-serve-congress/934999002/
more info about the mess.
@Nick,
In California (Senate District 32) it was apparently due to ballot order.
California conducts a draw for a random alphabet. Apparently there was a second draw for the special election. The leading Democrat for the full term was top of the ballot at 17%, but only 12% for the special election when he was further down on the ballot. 12% was 4th place in a Top 2 election, while 17% was second place.
The special election was called because the current senator resigned before he could be expelled. He then decided to run in the special election and also re-election.
The runoff for the special election was last week, and the Republican almost won. So basically about 5-10% of voters were voting in the gubernatorial/senate races and picked a name that was (1) Hispanic (2) Democratic, and (3) first on the ballot.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
In Detroit, there were 6 candidates for the full term, and 4 candidates for the short term. The two additional candidates included Coleman Young II, son of the former mayor of Detroit (1974-1994). Young received about 11% of the vote, and the other added candidate received 5% of the vote, in effect acting as spoiler candidates.
Brenda Jones won the special election primary 37% to 35%, but lost the full term primary 30% to 31%
Hmm — ONLY a mere 5-10% of brain dead robot top line *donkey* voters ??
1/2 ballots A-Z
1/2 ballots Z-A
—
change starting letters —
less Aardvark and Zyzyz candidates