In 2016, the Utah legislature amended the election law to require that independent candidates must have this message underneath their names on the ballot: “This candidate is not affiliated with, or does not qualify to be listed on the ballot as affiliated with a political party.”
There is only one independent candidate for any federal or state office on the Utah ballot this year. She is Marsha Holland, running for State House, district 73. She is the only opponent of the incumbent Republican. She has raised more money than her opponent. On November 2, she filed a federal lawsuit against the law requiring that ballot label for independent candidates. She does not ask for injunctive relief, but she says she intends to run in 2020 as well, and she asks that the label be declared unconstitutional. Here is her six-page Complaint. Holland v Cox, 4:18cv-74. The case is assigned to Judge David Nuffer, an Obama appointee.
Her complaint says that she has learned from multiple sources that when voters see that label, they believe it means it is saying she is not qualified to be elected. Here is a news story about her lawsuit, showing a picture of the ballot.
Longest statist ballot label ever ???
How rotted are the skoools in Utah regarding reading *skills* ???
— rashly assuming the DARK AGE State has any public skoools.
How FASCIST are the Dark Age Elephants in the Utah regime ??? —
many escapees from RED communist California ???
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NO primaries.
PR and AppV
The story page has all sorts of machinations by the Utah regime HACKS.
Utah — like many small population States should still be a USA territory —
until some REAL Democracy gets into the brains of a new generation.
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PR and AppV
“Unaffiliated” would be quite sufficient.
Are they crazy in Utah?
They could easily end up like SF, Oakland, Maine and other places who installed RCV and thus guaranteed a one-party system.
Use PPR, but ban single-winner districts, or you get one-party guaranteed, with ranked choice voting in single-winner districts.
Single-winner districts is what cements a one-party system in RCV, just as a two-party system is guaranteed in single-winner districts under pluralism, because the biggest always wins except in fluke cases.
Give me a break, you want a two-party system with single winner districts AND to ban independents?
All the houses of the USA Congress and ALL the State legislatures are EVIL and VICIOUS minority rule gerrymander OLIGARCHIES
— since 1776-1789 — filled with party HACKS
— interested ONLY in — guess what — staying in POWER.
See the media MORONS on 2018 Election night — with their 20 IQ MORON comments that the election results mean ANY-thing — other than some new gerrymander oligarchs get elected.
PR and AppV
On an actual ballot it doesn’t appear that bad.
https://sanjuancounty.org/sjc-content/documents/Sample%20Ballot%20-%202018%20General.pdf
SB 25 appears mainly to switch from a party column to an office block ballot. Utah has straight ticket voting, and under the old format there was a party circle at the head of every column except the unaffilated candidate column. There was also an instruction to not vote for more than one unaffilated candidate per office.
The awkward new language appears to cover the possibility of a candidate who is affiliated with a party, running as other than the nominee of the party.
If Utah adopted Top 2, this problem would disappear.
What percent of Utah Stone Age voter folks know what *affiliated* means ???
Any politics dictionaries at polling places ???
@DR,
98% Utahns are exceptionally well educated and informed.
The other 2 percent control the regime – gerrymander system, the courts, etc ???
What part of the 98 percent is aware of PR and AppV ???
Hoards of folks moving to Utah — to be educated and informed ???