The House Elections Law Committee in New Hampshire will hear HB 1540 on Tuesday, January 23. This is the bill to provide for ranked choice voting for federal and state office. The Concord Monitor has this op-ed in support of the idea, authored by Tiani X. Coleman, a leader of the group that advocates better treatment for independent voters.
Also, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has this op-ed by Sam Blankenship, in support of Proportional Representation.
Michael R. Strain, a Bloomberg View writer, here suggests that the U.S. would be better off with a multi-party system, combined with an end to a fixed term for the chief executive.
On January 22, the Indiana Senate Elections Committee passed SB 328 by 6-3. It lowers the number of signatures for an independent candidate, or the nominee of an unqualified party, from 2% of the last Secretary of State vote, to one-half of 1% of the last Secretary of State vote. If it passes, it takes effect January 1, 2019. Thanks to Craig Marolf for this news.
UPDATE: see this news story about the bill (the lower half of the article).
The National Democratic Committee’s Rules & Bylaws Committee met in Washington, D.C., January 19-20, to start reviewing ideas for changes in the 2020 presidential selection process. See this story. The Committee will be reviewing ideas of the Democratic Unity Commission, which had recommended fewer superdelegates, and had urged the party’s state legislators to do everything in their power to create same-day voter registration, or automatic voter registration, in the states that don’t have either process. Also the Democratic Unity Commission recommended that states like New York and Delaware have more relaxed deadlines for voters to switch parties.
A U.S. District Court will hear Merced v Spano, e.d., 1:16cv-3054, on Thursday, March 29, at 3:30 pm in Brooklyn. This is the case on New York’s ban on out-of-state circulators. The Libertarian Party filed this case in 2016.
