On February 9, the Virginia Senate passed SB 742. Here is the text of the bill. It says that when no one gets as much as 50% in a general election for a statewide office, there shall be a run-off between the top two contenders. Oddly, the bill does not specify the date of such a run-off. The bill excepts presidential elections. The bill also says that if someone got 50% when all write-in votes are ignored, then no run-off is needed.
The vote was 22-16. All Republican Senators voted for the bill, along with one Democratic Senator. The bill now goes to the House of Delegates.
“…when all write-in votes are ignored, then no run-off is needed.” – well, I was liking this bill until I read that part. Hopefully that situation will happen as soon as possible and the candidate on the losing end has the backbone to file a lawsuit. I am not holding my breath.
I would live to see this here in West Virginia:
U.S. House of Representatives — District 2 (2014 Election)
Candidate Party Votes Percentage
ALEX X. MOONEY Republican 72,619 47.08%
NICK CASEY Democrat 67,687 43.88%
DAVY JONES Libertarian 7,682 4.98%
ED RABEL Independent 6,250 4.05%
The Virginia bill doesn’t apply to district office. An opponent of the bill raised that point and asked “why not?” The sponsor said this whole thing is an experiment and it would be good to try it out just for statewide office to start with.
Real answer: Republicans don’t feel burned by a Libertarian “spoiler” for district offices in the past two elections. Even if it’s unjustified and they would have lost both those elections anyway, which I think is the case, concerns about another Sarvis is the obvious motivation. There’s no other reason why they would focus on statewide office and ignore everything else.
Richard, yea, I realized that right after I posted, but you don’t have an edit feature. OK, then let’s look at this one which was close, and will likely be even closer next year when the Constitution Party has ballot access for our gubernatorial candidate:
West Virginia Governor (2012 election)
Candidate Party Votes Percentage
EARL RAY TOMBLIN Democrat 335,468 50.49%
BILL MALONEY Republican 303,291 45.65%
JESSE JOHNSON Mountain 16,787 2.53%
DAVID MORAN Libertarian 8,909 1.34%
Runoff general elections are one more DISTRACTION.
—
ONE election.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.