Susan Hogarth, a Libertarian Party nominee for North Carolina legislature in 2024, has a federal lawsuit pending against the state’s ban on a voter taking a picture of his or her voted ballot. Hogarth v Bell, e.d., 5:24cv-481. See this article about the case, which will probably be decided soon. The Judge is Louise Wood Flanagan, a Bush Jr. appointee.
Tomorrow (Thursday, July 17, 2025), RankMIVote will start circulating a citizens initiative petition to amend the Constitution of Michigan to adopt Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) for some offices in certain elections in Michigan. If the petition effort gathers at least 446,198 valid signatures of Michigan registered voters, the question of adoption of RCV will be on the ballot in November 2026.
The legal petitioning period is 180 days, and the 180th day of the petitioning period will be Monday, January 12, 2026. It is the goal of RankMIVote that the petition drive be completed with an entirely volunteer effort. The anti-gerrymandering ballot question that was approved with 61% of the vote in Michigan in November 2018 was placed on the ballot with an all volunteer petitioning effort.
The initiative calls for RCV to be used in Major Party primaries for President, Governor, US Senate, and US House. In General Elections, RCV would be used for those offices, plus Attorney General and Secretary of State. State House and State Senate elections are not included in this initiative.
It also calls for RCV to be used with straight-ticket voting, whereby voters can rank parties, which they carry down the ballot. It would also allow expansion of RCV through local adoption and by acts of the state legislature.
According to the rankmivote.org website, this initiative would also require Michigan government to inform voters of all important updates on how or where to vote, ensure that voters in line at the time of poll closure can vote, allow all voters to use paper ballots in all elections, and move primaries from August to at least June, and possibly earlier in the year.
The RankMiVote organization has been preparing for this petition drive for years. I will be involved in this effort as a volunteer petitioner and have attended several online and in-person meetings in the run up to July 17. This appears to me to be a very well organized effort.
The petition can be seen here.
On July 16, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order in Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v Howe, 25A62. This is the North Dakota legislative redistricting case. The U.S. District Court had invalidated the legislature’s redistricting plan for certain districts, but then the Eighth Circuit had reversed the U.S. District Court. But the new order from the U.S. Supreme Court puts a hold on the dispute until after the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to take the case.
The Arizona Secretary of State has released the July 2025 registration tally. Percentages are: Republican 35.74%; Democratic 28.41%; No Labels .89%; Libertarian .71%; Green .11%; other and independent 34.13%.
Percentages in July 2024 were: Republican 35.41%; Democratic 29.10%; Libertarian .75%; No Labels .71%; Green .08%; other and independent 33.95%.
On July 16, Quinnipiac Polls released results showing that 49% of Americans say they would consider joining a new party. 45% said they would not consider doing that. See the results here. Scroll down because there are other unrelated results listed first.
