The Peach Pundit has this commentary about Georgia ballot access, along with comment on Instant Runoff Voting and on electronic vote-counting machines that create an audit trail. The Peach Pundit is a blog about Georgia politics. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
At least 137 bills have been introduced in the California legislature, for the 2011-2012 session, according to the legislature’s web page. But there seem to be no bills changing the way candidates for federal or state office are elected. The California Secretary of State, and the California Association of County Election Officials, both seek changes to the law that implements the “top-two” system. The counties are worried that the administrative cost of printing ballots will be significantly higher than in the past, if no changes are made.
There is also the problem that the law is now internally contradictory on whether write-in space should be printed on November ballots, or on run-off ballots in special elections. The code continues to say that such write-in spaces should be printed. The sample ballots for the special election run-off in the First State Senate District do contain write-in space, although that election (set for January 4) is the last being conducted under the rules in effect before Prop. 14 passed. The law also continues to provide procedures for declared write-in candidates to file a declaration of write-in candidacy in all elections. On the other hand, the implementing language for Prop. 14 says write-in votes in November, or in special run-offs, can’t be counted.
Anyone, in any state, is free to check state legislative pages, looking for election law bills of interest. If you find interesting election law bills, please notify us all, either with a comment to this post, or with an e-mail to richardwinger@yahoo.com. Thank you. Of course in some states, no bills have been introduced yet.
On December 23, a lower state court in Nebraska ruled that the recall petition for Mayor of Omaha has enough valid signatures. Proponents of the recall needed 26,643 valid signatures. They collected 37,596, and elections officials ruled that approximately 29,000 were valid. Opponents of the recall then sued the elections officials, saying the number of valid signatures is actually fewer than the requirement. However, the judge did not find any invalid signatures among those that elections officials had said are valid.
Even though half the signatures were collected by volunteers, the cost of collecting the other half was $300,000. Proponents of the recall say that the cost was extraordinarily high because of Nebraska’s laws against using out-of-state circulators, and laws against paying circulators on a per-signature basis. See this story.
Elections officials in Tom Green County, Texas, have discovered a ballot box containing 1,545 votes from November 2, 2010, that were never counted. See this story. The county says it would be illegal to reveal to the public the tally of those ballots.
Every state has released its official vote totals for U.S. House, except that Pennsylvania is still working on compiling the write-ins. The national totals for U.S. House, for each party, appear to be:
Republican 44,540,590; Democratic 38,717,920; Libertarian 1,074,189; Conservative 267,939; Green 252,688; Constitution (including American Independent) 251,741; Independence 205,845; Working Families 202,762; Tea 38,790; Peace & Freedom 30,714; Whig (including Modern Whig) 24,893; Independent Green 21,374; Reform 9,333; Socialist Workers 8,905; Independent Party 6,014; Socialist 3,222; United Citizens 1,013; Blue Enigma 961; Socialist Action 955; independent candidates 833,528.
In 2006, the national vote for U.S. House for the nationally-organized parties was: Democratic 42,086,214; Republican 35,759,040; Libertarian 650,614; Green 293,606; Constitution 134,215; Reform 53,862; Socialist Workers 17,119; Socialist 385; other parties 493,045; independent candidates 436,279.
Because there are approximately 40% more voters in presidential election years than in mid-term years, the comparision with 2006 seemed more relevant than a comparison with 2008.
On December 21, the LaRouche organization announced the candidacies of six congressional candidates for the 2012 election. They will all run in Democratic primaries. Followers of Lyndon LaRouche have been running in Democratic primaries for public office, and also for Democratic Party office, ever since 1979. The six candidates already announced for 2012 are running in California, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, and Washington. It is interesting that the organization chose two “top-two” states, California and Washington, for its campaigns.