On January 27, the Virginia House Privileges & Elections Committee postponed HB 360 until 2021, which is equivalent to killing it for this session. The bill sets up a system in which all candidates would run in the June primary. Then, only the top four candidates could run in November, and the November election would use ranked choice voting.
Also, on the same day, the same committee passed HB 1103, which would let local governments use ranked choice voting for elections for their own officers.
On January 27, the Virginia House Privileges & Elections Committee pass the National Popular Vote, although it will be re-written. The bill is HB 177. The new wording is not yet available.
U.S. District Court Judge David Doty will hold a hearing in Libertarian Party of Minnesota v Choi, 0:19cv-2312, on Tuesday, May 19. This is the case in which the Libertarian Party challenges the wording on the petition for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. It says that the signers “do not intend to vote” in the upcoming primary.
Two New Hampshire Representatives, one Republican and one Democrat, are sponsoring HB 1403. It would convert New Hampshire from a state with party column ballots, to a state with office-group ballots.
Over the last thirty years, almost every state has switched to an office-group ballot, in which the ballot is organized by particular offices. For each section for a particular office, all of the candidates for that office are listed neatly.
The only states that still have party-column ballots are New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey (in most counties), and Delaware.
The two New Hampshire Representatives sponsoring the bill are Timothy Lang, a Republican from Belknap County; and Charlie St. Clair, a Democrat from Belknap County. Thanks to Darryl Perry for this news. Here is the bill.
On January 27, Michael Bloomberg announced his support for statehood for Puerto Rico. The only other mainstream Democratic presidential candidates who have that position are Andrew Yang and John Delaney.
The bill in the U.S. House to admit Puerto Rico as a state, HR 1965, has 21 co-sponsors. It has not gained any co-sponsors since August 2019.
