On February 18, three election law bills passed the New Mexico House State Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee. All three now go to the Judiciary Committee. They are HB 93 (switching from a closed primary to a semi-closed primary), HB 425 (to replace presidential electors who “disobey”), and HB 407 (the omnibus election law bill).
HB 407 lowers the signature requirement for independent candidates from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 2%.
Carl Pope, former head of the Sierra Club, has this opinion piece at Salon. He says that anyone who runs outside the two major parties for president “is an enemy of democracy.” The chance that Howard Schultz might run for president motivated this story. Pope does not even mention the idea of Ranked Choice Voting. UPDATE: the title of the piece has been changed, so that instead of proclaiming that Schultz is an enemy of democracy, it asks if he is, and the title ends with a question mark.
The only reason Maine became the first state to use Ranked Choice Voting for federal office is because Maine had two gubernatorial elections in a row in which an independent candidate for Governor was perceived as a “spoiler.” Democrats hold both houses of the legislature and the Governorship in 14 states. If Democrats really believe that a strong independent candidate for President will be a “spoiler”, then rationally they should pass bills for Ranked Choice Voting. And for prominent voices like Pope to write an entire essay without even mentioning this idea is incomprehensible.
Jacobin Magazine has this thorough and interesting accout of Lyndon LaRouche’s history of political activism, with emphasis on the early years. The article is by Scott McLemee.
On February 13, the New Hampshire House Election Law Committee declined to pass HB 728, which would have provided for ranked choice voting for all federal and state office. But the committee did not defeat the bill either. It will study the issue some more. However, the delay means that ranked choice voting can’t be in place in time for the February 2020 presidential primaries. Here is a copy of the bill.
Tiani X. Coleman of New Hampshire has this interesting description of the hearing, posted in Independent Voting Network.
New Mexico Representative Matthew McQueen (D-Santa Fe) has introduced HB 425. It says if a presidential elector does not vote for his or her party’s presidential nominee, he or she will be replaced. The text of the bill is here. It seems to imply that an independent presidential candidate will never carry New Mexico, because it only deals with party nominees for presidential elector. Here is the legislative analyst’s description of the bill.
See this article for more on how electors are chosen.
