The Independent Voters News has this opinion piece by Green Party activist Mike Feinstein of California. It praises Maine’s use of ranked choice voting, and criticizes Alaska’s new ranked choice voting. The difference is that in Maine, parties continue to have their own nominees, whereas in Alaska, parties have lost the ability to have nominees. It is good that IVN carried this piece, because in the past IVN has been supportive of eliminating party nominees.
Ballot Access News
December 2020 – Volume 36, Number 7
| This issue was printed on white paper. |
Table of Contents
As has been well-publicized, there is still no resolution of who won the U.S. House race in New York’s 22nd District. That district includes eight counties. Each county Board of Elections has a website, but the websites of the eight counties differ drastically in regards to this race.
Broome, Cortland, Madison, Oswego, and Tioga County Boards all have unofficial election results for this race on their websites.
Chenango County lists the race in its election returns, but all totals for the candidate in this race are blank.
Herkimer County has election returns for all other offices, but does not even list the 22nd district.
Most extreme of all, Oneida County has no election results for any race in the November 2020 election.
Six parties had nominees in the race. The Republican and Conservative Parties nominated Claudia Tenney. The Democratic, Working Families, and Independence Parties nominated Anthony Brindisi, the incumbent. The Libertarian Party nominated Keith D. Price. Newspaper stories say the vote at the end of November was: Tenney 155,519; Brindisi 155,500; Price 6,755. Since then the totals have changed slightly, as a state trial court orders recounts and evaluates certain disputed ballots.
Mike Feinstein has this op-ed in the Santa Clarita Valley Signal, a daily newspaper in Los Angeles County. It explains the advantages that would occur if California and also the U.S. used proportional representation.
In 2020, the Texas ballots didn’t have a straight-ticket device, the first time ever since the 1950’s. Removing the device effective 2020 seems to have helped increase the percentage of the vote for lower-ticket Libertarian candidates.
In 2018, in the U.S. House districts in which there was a Republican, a Democrat, and a Libertarian, the Libertarian U.S. House candidates polled 1.66% of the vote.. In 2020, in Texas U.S. House districts with a Democrat, Republican, and Libertarian, the Libertarians polled 2.43%.
In statewide judicial partisan races with all three parties in the race, in 2020, the three Libertarians polled 2.52%, 2.34%, and 2.51%. In 2018, there was only one judicial race with three parties, and the Libertarian in that race polled 2.28%.
