“The Conversation” Carries Clear and Interesting Article on Flaws in All Voting Systems, with a Proposed Solution

Posted on by May 20, 2018
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“The Conversation” is an on-line publication, since 2011, with content from the academic and research community. It has published this article about multi-candidate elections, by Mathematics Professor Christoph Borgers of Tufts. It shows theoretical flaws in standard elections, elections using ranked choice voting, Condorcet, and Borda. If you aren’t sure what those last two systems are, the article is excellent for explaining them. Borgers then proposes a new system. Thanks to Craig Franklin for the link.

West Virginia Law that Clearly Bans “Sore Losers” Doesn’t Go Into Effect in Time to Block Don Blankenship

Posted on by May 20, 2018
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The 2018 West Virginia legislature passed HB 4434, to make it clear that people who lose a primary (for office other than president) can’t petition onto the general election ballot. See this story, which says that it doesn’t go into effect for 90 days after it was signed. It was signed on March 22, so it won’t be in effect until late June.

But Don Blankenship, who ran for U.S. Senate in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate this year, might want to petition as an independent. Whether the old law would block him is not clear.

Medical Marijuana Initiative in Utah Has Enough Valid Signatures, but Opponents Sue to Block it from Ballot Based on its Content

Posted on by May 18, 2018
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A few days ago, it became known that a Utah initiative to legalize medical marijuana had enough valid signatures. It is very difficult to get a statewide initiative on the Utah ballot. Then, opponents of the measure sued in state court to have it blocked from the ballot because of the content of the initiative. The lawsuit says Utah cannot legalize medical marijuana because of federal law. See this story. The case is Coalition for a Safe and Healthy Utah v Cox, 3rd judicial district.

Arizona Governor Signs Bill Restricting Special Elections for U.S. Senate

Posted on by May 18, 2018
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On May 16, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed HB 2538. It eliminates special U.S. Senate elections if the seat becomes vacant in the middle of an election year. Instead, in such circumstances, the gubernatorial appointee would serve two and one-half years instead of just one-half year.

The bill does not have an urgency clause, so can’t take effect this year. Republicans tried to attach an urgency clause but that takes a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature, so Democrats blocked the urgency clause.

Author and Journalist Andrew Gumbel Writes that California’s Top-Two System Isn’t Working

Posted on by May 18, 2018
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Andrew Gumbel, an author, journalist, and former foreign correspondent in many countries, has this op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. He argues that California’s top-two system isn’t working well and should be changed.
Read about Gumbel here.

UPDATE: also, CalMatters, an on-line publication about California politics and government, has a very detailed analysis by Ben Christopher of the 2018 races in which Democrats may be left with no candidate on the November ballot, even in districts carried in November 2016 by Hillary Clinton.

FURTHER UPDATE: this piece by Mike Feinstein in Fox & Hounds makes some points that other articles on this subject have not made.