The Prohibition Party will hold a telephone national convention on April 14 and choose a new presidential and vice-presidential nominee for 2020.
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On April 2, Maine Representative Janice Cooper (D-Yarmouth) introduced LD 1477. It extends ranked choice voting to general elections for state office. It begins the process of amending the Maine Constitution. Although Maine now has ranked choice voting for congress, and for state office primaries, the state constitution stands in the way of permitting it for state office general elections.
LD 1477 has a hearing in the Joint Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee on April 10. It needs two-thirds approval in each house.
The Libertarian Party may have presidential primaries in as many as sixteen jurisdictions in 2020, which would be more than any party (other than the Democratic and Republican Parties) has ever had. In a few states in the past, though, state Libertarian Parties have declined to have presidential primaries even though they were entitled to them, so it isn’t possible to know now how many Libertarian presidential primaries there will be.
It appears that there could be Libertarian 2020 presidential primaries in Arizona, California, Delaware (although ballot access for candidates is difficult), D.C., Idaho, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah. There is a possibility of one in New Mexico also, if the state agrees that the party is still entitled to a primary. The New Mexico Secretary of State still lists the Libertarian Party in its voter registration statistics. New Mexico also keeps track of the number of registrants in qualified minor parties, but does not display that data on its web page, so the fact that the Secretary has the Libertarian Party in its chart implies that the party is still considered a party entitled to a primary.
Several city council members in Washington, D.C., have introduced B23-0212. It moves the primary for president and all other office, in presidential years, from the third Tuesday in June to the first Tuesday in June. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
Leading Ohio Democratic Party activists are about to launch a statewide initiative to bolster the National Popular Vote Plan. It would amend the state constitution to require the legislature to pass the plan. Here is a summary of the proposal.