On December 7, U.S. District Court Judge Patti Saris issued an opinion in Lyman v Baker, 1:18cv-10327. She upheld the Massachusetts system of electing presidential electors, on an at-large basis. Here is the 23-page opinion.
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On December 6, the Ohio Election Commission dismissed complaints from the Libertarian and Green Party candidates for Governor, over their exclusion from debates this year. See this story.
Final Utah election returns show that Proposition Four, setting up an independent redistricting commission for U.S. House and state legislative boundaries, passed with 50.3% of the vote. The final tally is: yes 512,218; no 505,274.
The measure failed in 25 of Utah’s 29 counties. It passed only in Carbon, Grand, Salt Lake, and Summit Counties. Grand and Summit Counties are the most Democratic Party-supporting counties in the state. They are the only two counties that voted in favor of the 2018 Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate (Jenny Wilson) against Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
The Fourth Circuit will hear Fitzgerald v Alcorn, 18-1111, on December 12, Wednesday, at 9:30 a.m. This is the case in which a unit of the Virginia Republican Party attacks the state law that says when a party has an incumbent running for re-election, he or she can dictate to the party whether to use a primary or a convention for that office.
On December 7, the Riverside County (California) finished the official vote count for the November 6, 2018 election. Libertarian Party member Jeff Hewitt, as expected, won for County Supervisor in the 5th district. Riverside County, like almost all California counties, only has five supervisors. The county has a population of 2,423,000 people, the eleventh largest county in the nation. The election is non-partisan, but Hewitt’s Libertarian Party membership was well-known.