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.
On April 10, Florida held a special election for State Senate, 31st district. Here are the results. Two candidates were on the ballot, a Democrat and a Republican. The Democrat received 74.8% and the Republican received 25.2%. Last time this district was up, in November 2016, only one candidate, a Democrat, was running. The previous election for this seat was in 2012, when the Democrat received 84.4% and the Republican received 15.6%.
On April 11, Public Policy Institute released this poll for California’s June 5 primary. Scroll down to page 13 to see the gubernatorial results. Pollsters only mentioned six of the 27 candidates who are on the ballot. Results: Democrat Gavin Newsom 26%; Republican John Cox 15%; Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa 13%; Republican Travis Allen 10%; Democrat John Chiang 7%; Democrat Delaine Eastin 6%.
The 21 candidates not included in the poll include seven Democrats, three Republicans, two Libertarians, two Greens, one Peace & Freedom member, and six independents.
The Atlantic has this article about Maine and ranked-choice voting in the 2018 election. There is no big news revealed the article, but the article’s details about what has been happening are interesting and fair to both sides.
The article is wrong to say that ranked-choice voting has never been used in a statewide election. It was used in a few southern states in the 1910’s decade for Democratic Party primaries.
