On Saturday, May 1, a town council election was held in Rock Hall, Maryland. Six candidates ran at-large for two seats. James Cook, a member of the Libertarian Party, placed first and was elected. Rock Hall is in the upper part of the eastern shore and has about 1,300 population. The election was non-partisan. Thanks to Bob Johnston for this news.
Most polls published in Germany in the past two weeks show the Green Party will win more seats than any other party. See this Guardian story.
On April 29, Elvin Dowling, who wants to run in a future special election to fill the vacancy in the U.S. House, 20th district seat, sued Governor Ron DeSantis. The Governor has not yet set the dates for a special election, even though the death of Congressman Alcee Hastings was on April 6, 2021. The Complaint alleges that in the last Florida special election, then-Governor Rick Scott called the election only 18 days after the vacancy was created.
The lawsuit charges that the Governor’s delay is motivated by partisan politics. It notes that the 20th district only cast 17% of its votes for Governor DeSantis when DeSantis was elected in 2018. It notes that the 20th district has an African-American majority.
Here is the Complaint in Dowling v DeSantis, s.d., 9:21cv-80796. It is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee.
Political scientist professor Marjorie Hershey has this article explaining why third parties in the U.S. win few seats. She says the U.S. would have a multi-party system if it had proportional representation. Ironically, her article says the Libertarian Party is the nation’s most successful third party. This is ironic because she is an expert witness in the pending lawsuit Libertarian Party of Alabama v Merrill, 20-13356. The lawsuit challenges Alabama’s policy of giving a free list of the registered voters to the Democratic and Republican Parties, but no other party. Her evidence supports the position of the state, and says the Libertarian Party doesn’t deserve a free copy of the voter registration list because it is not a real political party.
On May 3, the Working Families Party won a lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Schenectady County, over whether its nominees should be on the ballot. Their nominees were also Democratic nominees. Republicans had challenged the electronic signatures on the candidacy paperwork. See this story.
