For the first time since 2000, there are more Democratic Party nominees for Georgia legislature than there are Republican nominees.
This parallels an earlier blog post that there are more Democratic nominees for Florida legislature, than Republicans, for the first time since 1994.
On Friday, October 2, Maine Republican opponents of ranked choice voting asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop use of ranked choice voting for president. Here is the brief. Jones v Dunlap, 20A57. The merits of the case do not concern ranked choice voting, but the constitutionality of the Maine law that kept the referendum petition off the ballot. That law requires referendum petitioners to be registered voters.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida recommends a “no” vote on Amendment Three, the top-two initiative. See the ACLU statement here.
On October 1, after another oral argument, the Maine State Supreme Judicial Court refused to stay its earlier opinion about the Republican Party-sponsored referendum petition on ranked choice voting for president. Now the Maine Republicans are expected to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
The issue is not about the validity of ranked choice voting. It is about whether the Republican referendum petition should have been accepted by the Secretary of State. The petition had enough valid signatures, but some of the signatures were disallowed because some circulators were not registered to vote in the town in which they were working, when they started working (later they changed their registration to comply with the law). The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that states can’t require petitioners to be registered voters, so the Maine Supreme Court did not follow binding precedent.
In 2020, the Florida Democratic Party has state legislative nominees in every district except one, the State House 5th district seat. Every election year, Florida has 20 State Senate races and 120 State House races. Sometimes there is a special election or two as well, but this post excludes them.
This is the first year since 1994 that there have been more Democratic nominees for the Florida legislature than Republican nominees for the legislature. In addition, it is easily the most impressive Florida Democratic slate of legislative candidates for the period 1994 to the present. Normally, because Florida filing fees are so high, the Democratic Party always fails to run legislative nominees in dozens of districts. Out of the 140 districts, here are the number of races with no Democratic nominee in the past: 1994 33; 1996 38; 1998 56; 2000 37; 2002 68; 2004 66; 2006 55; 2008 39; 2010 45; 2012 59; 2014 53; 2016 50; 2018 12.
Obviously the Democratic Party of Florida this year made an effort to virtually fill its legislative tickets. This year the Florida Republican Party lacks legislative nominees in 26 districts.
This year, there are two Libertarian legislative nominees on the ballot, and 14 independent candidates.
