On June 12, the California Secretary of State determined that an initiative to divide California into three states has enough signatures, and will appear on the November 6 ballot.
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On June 12, Maine voters were asked whether they want to keep ranked choice voting. With 79% of the vote counted so far, ranked choice voting is winning with 54%. Assuming that trend continues, Maine will use ranked choice voting in November 2018 for U.S. Senate and U.S. House.
Whether Maine uses ranked choice voting for state office in future general elections depends on whether a future session of the legislature passes a constitutional amendment to provide for that.
South Carolina has always been an open primary state, since primaries were begun. There is no voter registration by party, and any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot.
The South Carolina Republican Party’s ballot for June 12 asks voters who choose the Republican primary ballot, “Do you believe that voters should have the option to choose to affiliate with a political party when they register to vote or change their voter registration in South Carolina?”
The measure is passing with 82%. Here is a link to the election returns. Scroll down to the very end. The voter registration question is Republican Question One. The other Republican question, question two, concerns taxes.
On June 12, the Eighth Circuit agreed with a U.S. District Court, and ruled that Missouri cannot force campaign committees to form at least thirty days before an election. A campaign committee is a group that wants to spend money either in support of, or opposed, to a candidate for state or local office, or a ballot measure. Missourians for Fiscal Accountability v Klahr, 17-1314. Here is the 13-page opinion.
The plaintiffs had formed a committee 13 days before the November 2014 election, in order to support a statewide ballot measure. They were threatened with a fine, so they sued to overturn the restriction. The opinion quotes Citizens United, a U.S. Supreme Court opinion, which said, “The public begins to concentrate on elections only in the weeks immediately before they are held. There are short timeframes in which speech can have influence. The need or relevance of the speech will often first be apparent at this stage in the campaign. The decision to speak is made in the heat of political campaigns, when speakers react to messages conveyed by others.”
The decision is by Judge William Benton, a Bush Jr. appointee. It is co-signed by Judge James Loken, a Bush Sr. appointee, and Ralph Erickson, a Trump appointee. Thanks to Steve Hoersting for this news.
On June 12, U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Steven M. Gold declared that New York state’s ban on out-of-state circulators is unconstitutional. This is not surprising, because on May 18 he had enjoined the restriction. Free Libertarian Party v Spano, e.d., 1:16cv-3054.
However, in his order of June 12, he said New York will be allowed to continue to enforce the ban until November 7, 2018, because it would be too difficult for the state to come up with new procedures in a matter of weeks. The petitioning period for general election petitions starts June 19 (for federal office).