Joel Fox, an analyst of California politics, writes here that Steve Poizner may very well be elected Insurance Commissioner of California this year. Poizner is an independent. If he wins, it would be the first time someone who wasn’t a Democrat or a Republican has been elected to partisan statewide office in California since 1914.
As the column notes, the key advantage for Poizner is that no Republican filed to run. His opponents are two Democrats and one Peace & Freedom member.
Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State has instructed all the counties to eliminate all vote-counting machines that don’t create a paper audit trail, before the 2020 election. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
This article describes (although not in very much detail) the oral argument held today in the Maine Supreme Court over ranked-choice voting.
UPDATE: here is a more detailed story.
On April 5, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan let SB 1048 become law, although he declined to sign it. Starting in 2019, it provides that every adult citizen known to exist by an agency of government will automatically be registered to vote, unless the individual declines to be registered.
The Maine Supreme Court will hear the challenge to this year’s implementation of ranked choice voting on Thursday, April 12, at 2 pm. The challenge is brought by some legislators who say the law is internally contradictory and therefore can’t be implemented. Existing law says vote counting is conducted in each town, but the ranked choice law says votes are counted in one location in the state capital.
