Mike Feinstein has this op-ed in the Orange County Register, advocating that California use multi-winner legislative districts and proportional representation.
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This NPR story says the traditional exit poll will probably no longer be carried out in the United States. Instead there will be more pre-election polling just days before the election, to capture information about the millions of persons who vote early, and also to account for the fact that more conservative voters are less willing to cooperate with exit pollsters.
On May 21, Illinois State Senator Sam McCann mostly lost his lawsuit against Senator William E. Brady, the leader of the Republicans in the State Senate. McCann v Brady, n.d., 1:18cv-3115. Here is the 18-page opinion. Senator McCann had announced earlier that he was leaving the Republican Party and would run as the Conservative Party nominee for Governor this year. But he still considered himself a member of the Republican caucus, so when he was expelled, he sued.
The decision says that state legislators, along with members of Congress, have immunity for actions taken in their legislative actions. It says, “The doctrine of legislative immunity restricts the ability of individuals to bring private civil suits against legislators for damages or injunctive relief…The concept of legislative immunity arises from the Speech or Debate Clause of Article I of the United States Constitution, which states, with regard to members of the United States Congress, that ‘for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”
The decision says that possibly McCann can sue the Republican Caucus, and gives him an opportunity to file an amended Complaint. The caucus is already a defendant in the case, but the briefs did not flesh out McCann’s case against the caucus.
On May 21, North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger said he will run for re-election this year as an independent candidate. See this story. He needs 1,000 signatures by early September.
As already noted, on April 20, a U.S. District Court in California said the Democratic presidential elector from 2016 who had sued could not prevail because the case is moot. Koller v Brown, n.d., 5:16cv-7069. Even though the U.S. District Court was plainly mistaken, the elector, Vinz Koller, did not appeal, and it is not too late for him to appeal.
The U.S. District Court said election law constitutional cases are moot unless the plaintiff intends to run in a future election. This is contrary to what the U.S. Supreme Court said about mootness in constitutional election laws cases in Moore v Ogilvie in 1969. The plaintiffs in that case were unpledged presidential electors in Illinois who had sued to overturn the county distribution requirement for statewide independent petitions. They had no intent in running in 1972, but the U.S. Supreme Court still said the case was not moot. This was made clear in Richardson v Ramirez, in which the Court discussed Moore v Ogilvie and said that the Moore plaintiffs did not intend to run in a future election.
The “disobedient” presidential electors who had sued Colorado and Minnesota over their right to vote for any candidate in the electoral college are more determined that Mr. Koller, and are appealing to U.S. Courts of Appeals.