On September 20, Canada held a Parliamentary election. The same five parties which had won seats in the 2019 election also won seats in the 2021 election. The results appear to be: Liberal 158, Conservative 119, Bloc Quebecois 34, New Democratic 25, Green 2. See this wikipedia article.
On September 21, the Pennsylvania Senate Government Committee passed SB 56. It is very badly worded, but it seems to say that in primaries and general elections alike, write-in vote totals will not be revealed unless the write-in candidate receives a number of write-in votes equal to the number of signatures that would have been needed to get on the ballot. The required number seems to be the number of petition signatures relating to get on a primary ballot, even though the bill affects general elections as well as primary elections. Here is the text.
The sponsor of the bill, Senator Scott Martin (R-Lancaster) says the bill is needed to prevent persons from receiving party nominations, or election, who don’t want to be nominated or elected. But there is a much more sensible way to achieve that goal. The legislature could require that write-in candidates must file a declaration of write-in candidacy if they want their write-ins counted. Pennsylvania is the only populous state that doesn’t have a write-in declaration of candidacy procedure.
As previously reported, on August 26, the Virginia Republican Party filed a lawsuit to remove Democratic gubernatorial Terry McAuliffe from the November 2021, on the grounds that he hadn’t signed a declaration of candidacy in the June 2021 Democratic primary. Although the state and McAuliffe filed responses the very next day, the court still hasn’t set a hearing date. Of course by now the ballots are being printed. Republican Party of Virginia v Piper, Circuit Court of the city of Richmond, CL 21-3848. Thanks to Richard Gardiner for this news.
This BBC News article explores all the differences between national elections in Canada and the U.S. The article specifically mentions that Canadians have far more parties to choose from.
This two-page memo, written by attorney John Eastman (an advisor to President Donald Trump), was given to Vice-President Mike Pence in late 2020 or early 2021. It tries to persuade Pence that he could and should invalidate the electoral votes from seven states, when he was presiding over the Electoral Vote count on January 6, 2021. Thanks to Election Law Blog for the link.
