On February 13, St. Louis held a special election to fill the vacant Alderman position in the 8th ward. Annie Rice, an independent candidate, defeated her only opponent, the Democratic nominee. See this story.
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Independent voters in South Dakota are already permitted to vote in Democratic and Libertarian primaries. That is because those two parties want independents to vote in their primaries. On February 13, a bill to allow independents to vote in the Republican and Constitution Party primaries was defeated on the House floor. HB 1305 had a Republican sponsor, Representative Drew Dennert, but most Republican House members voted against it. See this story. Thanks to Shawn Griffiths for the link.
Florida held a special election on February 13 to fill the vacancy in the State House, 72nd district. The results: Democratic 52.2%; Republican 44.8%; Libertarian 3.0%.
When this seat was last up, in November 2016, the results were: Republican 58.1%; Democratic 41.9%.
The Democratic National Committee will be obliged to persuade a federal court that it should be allowed to withhold evidence of its hack in 2016 by Russians. See this Vanity Fair story. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
Every even-numbered year, voters in Michigan choose eight statewide candidates for various educational offices, in partisan elections. There are always two seats for State Board of Education, and six seats for the governing bodies of state universities. Several bills are pending to either eliminate these elections, or restrict them to only mid-term year elections.
The bills will be heard on Thursday, Feb. 15, in committee. They are HB 5515, HB 5516, and HB 5533. If the legislature passes them, they would not go into effect unless the voters approve a constitutional amendment.
If those elections were entirely eliminated, that would make it somewhat more difficult for qualified parties to remain on the ballot. In 2016, without those educational offices, the only statewide office on the ballot would have been President. All parties had to poll at least 16,491 votes for a statewide office in order to remain on. In 2016 the Constitution Party (which in Michigan is the US Taxpayers Party) only got 16,139 votes for President, so it would have gone off the ballot. The Natural Law Party would also have gone off the ballot. Thanks to John Anthony LaPietra for this news.