According to this story, a new party, described as libertarian, is being formed for Israel’s upcoming election. It stands for separation of church and state, making it unique in that nation. The name of the party will be the New Liberal Party.
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo continues to defend his plan to make it more difficult for groups to be qualified parties in New York by saying that if the state is going to give public funding to candidates, all candidates and parties on the ballot must have substantial public support.
None of the New York news sources have mentioned that New York is in the Second Circuit, and in 2010 the Second Circuit ruled it is constitutional to give public funding only to nominees of parties that polled at least 20% of the vote in the last gubernatorial election. The case was Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield, 616 F.3d 213. Here is a November 29 news story from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, which shows that the Governor continues to say that all parties and candidates will receive public funding under his proposal. He also implies that parties themselves receive public funding, but that is not true.
Now that a U.S. District Court has declined to freeze Michigan’s new procedure for choosing a redistricting commission, the Secretary of State is going ahead with the process. This article says the state has already chosen 250,000 people at random, and will send an application form asking if they want to serve. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
This Houston Chronicle story says Libertarian Party candidates for the legislature are more and more likely to poll a number of votes that is greater than the difference between the two major party candidates. However the article does not mention ranked choice voting. Thanks to Clifford Thies for the link.
On November 27, persons associated with the Democratic Party sued Minnesota over its law on the order of candidates on the general election in partisan races. That law, unique in the nation, says the nominees of the qualified parties should be listed first on the ballot, in reverse order of how many votes they received in the previous general election for all partisan office. Here is the Complaint, in Pavek v Simon, 0:19cv-3000.
Under the existing law, the nominees of the Legal Marijuana Now Party will be listed first on the November 2020 ballot, because it polled the fewest votes of the four ballot-qualified parties. Next will be the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party; then the Republican Party; and finally the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Under their nominees will be the nominees of the unqualified parties, and any independent candidates. The case is assigned to U.S. District Magistrate David T. Schultz, a Trump appointee. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.