Mission Viejo, a California city in Orange County, had decided to use Cumulative Voting to elect all five of its city councilmembers in the 2020 election. However, on September 18, the California Secretary of state ruled that Cumulative Voting is not legal in California for general law cities.

Under Cumulative Voting, if there are five seats to be filled, a voter has five votes, but he or she can spread them around so as to give two votes to one candidate, and three votes to another candidate, if the voter votes for only two candidates. The voter can even give all five votes to a single candidate.

No city in California has ever used Cumulative Voting.

A lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Montana, challenging the state’s ban on out-of-state circulators, and the state’s ban on paying circulators on a per-signature basis (for initiatives) was filed on May 9, 2018. After extensive discovery lasting many months, the case is finally moving to a decision. The briefs for summary judgment on each side are due October 4, 2019. The case is before U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell, a Reagan appointee.

Earlier this month, the American Solidarity Party chose Brian T. Carroll for president, in an on-line convention. He lives in Visalia, California. In 2018 he ran for U.S. House in the 22nd district, and polled 1,591 votes in the six-person primary, or 1.3%. His ballot label was “party preference: none” but if he had been permitted to have his actual party name on the ballot, it would have been “American Solidarity.”

The American Solidarity Party web page is here. It ran its first presidential campaign in 2016. Its presidential nominee in 2016 was Michael Maturen, who was only on the ballot in Colorado, but Maturen filed for write-in status in many states, and even though he only received 862 votes in Colorado, when his write-ins from other states are included, he received 6,765 votes in the nation, placing 14th. Thanks to Charles Sherrouse for this news.