Recently a court in Russia issued a ruling barring supporters or associates of Alexei Navalny from running for parliament in the upcoming September 2021 parliamentary election. See this London Times story. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
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The Virginia Elections office has determined that independent gubernatorial candidate Princess Blanding submitted enough valid signatures to be on the November 2021 ballot. The other two petitions, for Constitution Party nominee T. C. Phipps and independent Frankie Bowers, did not have enough.
Therefore, only three candidates will be on the November ballot, the Democratic and Republican nominees, and Blanding.
June 8 was the deadline for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, to submit signatures to be on the ballot for Virginia state office. Three petitions were submitted for Governor. They each needed 2,000 signatures. It is not known whether the petitions have enough valid signatures.
The candidates are T. C. Phipps of the Constitution Party, Princess Blanding of the Liberation Party, and independent Frankie Bowers.
On June 9, the Maine legislature passed LD 231, which lets independent voters choose a primary ballot, even though they are not members of the party. The bill was originally titled as a bill for an “open primary”, but it was amended to say that it is now a bill for a semi-open primary.
The Maine bill is similar to laws in Arizona and Colorado. More common are states that leave it up to each party that has a primary to decide for itself whether to let independents vote in its primary.
On June 8, the Colorado legislature passed HB 1071. It says that if a city wants to use ranked choice voting for its own city officer elections, the county elections office must handle that RCV election for the city. This will make it far easier for cities to try ranked choice voting. Thanks to Fairvote for this news.