On May 19, the New York Working Families Party of New York endorsed Cynthia Nixon for Governor, which makes it more likely that she will be the party’s nominee in November. See this story.
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On May 18, President Donald Trump endorsed John Cox for California Governor. See this New York Magazine story. This makes it likely that Cox will do well enough in the June 5 primary to place second, thus qualifying for the November ballot.
The Minnesota legislature is about to adjourn for the year, as of Sunday, May 20. A bill to make petition deadlines earlier for newly-qualifying parties and independent candidates did not pass. The bill, HB 1393, moved the primary from August to June. Because Minnesota law ties the date of the primary to the petition deadlines for new parties and also independent candidates, the bill would automatically have made those deadlines two months earlier.
The Minnesota bills to forbid cities from using ranked choice voting for their own elections, HB 3690 and SF 3325, also failed to pass. The Senate bill had passed one committee but did not advance beyond that.
The bills to make the legislature non-partisan also failed to pass. They were HF 1843 and SF 3759.
The Missouri legislature adjourned on May 18. Two bills to make ballot access more difficult failed to pass.
HB 1285 would have increased the number of signatures for statewide independent candidates from 10,000 signatures to 2% of the last vote cast, which would have been greater than 110,000 signatures. The sponsors were Representative Pat Conway (D-St. Joseph) and Dan Stacy (R-Blue Springs). The bill had passed committee in the House but made no further progress.
HB 1232 would have banned “sore losers”. It was sponsored by Representative Stacy. It also had passed committee in the house, but did not advance beyond that. Thanks to Ken Bush for this news.
“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.