On November 28, five Ohio Republican State House members, including the Speaker, introduced HJR 19. It would amend the state constitution to provide that initiatives to amend the state constitution can’t pass unless they receive 60% of the vote. Also the time for collecting the signatures (10% of the last gubernatorial vote) would be cut to 180 days.
This bill is being considered in the 2017-2018 session of the legislature, not the legislature that takes office early next year.
David Krupa is a candidate for Alderman, 13th ward, in the February 2019 Chicago non-partisan election. He needed 473 signatures to get on the ballot, and he submitted 1,703 signatures. But then individuals who do not want him on the ballot submitted 2,700 affidavits of people who claim they had signed for Krupa and they now wish to revoke their signatures. See this Chicago Tribune story. Only 187 people who signed a revocation had actually signed Krupa’s petition, which means the other 2,513 individuals who said they had signed for Krupa were not telling the truth. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. Krupa is 19 years old.
John Myers, Los Angeles Times correspondent in Sacramento, has this story about the millions of California voters who cast a ballot last month, but who left their ballots blank in statewide races with only two Democrats, and no one else, on the ballot.
Arthur R. Jones, Republican nominee for U.S. House, Illinois 3rd district, polled 25.9% of the vote last month. The same district did not have any Republican nominee in 2016. In 2014, the same district cast 35.4% of its vote for the Republican nominee; in 2012, 31.5%.
Three write-in candidates filed for the November 2018 election, but together they received only 1.1% of the vote.
Jones got a lot of publicity for winning the Republican primary unopposed in March 2018, because he denies the existence of the Holocaust.
The Working Families Party received its lowest share of the vote in gubernatorial elections last month since 1998. In Connecticut, where it has only been participating in gubernatorial elections starting in 2010, it was outpolled by the Independent Party, and so drops to fourth line on the ballot. Its three showings in Connecticut for Governor have been: 2010 2.30%; 2014 2.27%; 2018 1.27%. All three times it nominated the candidate who was also the Democratic nominee.
In New York, its gubernatorial percentages have been: 1998 1.08%; 2002 1.98%; 2006 3.50%; 2010 3.33%; 2014 3.31%; 2018 1.83%. All six times, it nominated the candidate who was also the Democratic nominee. The 2018 percentage is still unofficial; New York hasn’t posted its official returns yet.
In 2018, the only other Working Families gubernatorial nominee was in Oregon, where the party also nominated the Democratic nominee. In Oregon, the ballot does not let voters choose which party to support in fusion races; there is only a single square on the ballot so the Democratic vote can’t be separated out from the Working Families vote.
