On December 18, U.S. District Court Judge David M. Lawson, a Clinton appointee, ordered the city of Centerline, Michigan, not to threaten Michael Mattia with arrest for displaying large posters on public sidewalks that show pictures of aborted fetuses. Mattia v City of Center Line, e.d., 2:17cv-11169. Center Line is in Macomb County. Here is the court order. Thanks to the Institute for Free Speech for this news.
On December 20, the city council of Santa Fe passed implementing legislation for ranked-choice voting. The first use will be in the city election of March 2018. See this story. Thanks to Electionline for the link.
On December 20, the recount results for the Virginia House of Delegates seat, district 94, were revised. The new results show a tie. Assuming that is final, the winner will be determined by a random process on Wednesday, December 28. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
I have just learned that Michael J. Dubin died on June 5, 2016, at the age of 77. Dubin was the nation’s leading compiler of election return books for the difficult-to-find early years of the United States. He authored United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997, the only book ever published that lists all candidates for Congress who were on the ballot in any congressional election. The book includes their vote, their party, and their percentage of the vote cast.
He authored Party Affiliations in the State Legislatures 1796-2006, a unique reference that shows partisan line-ups in each state’s legislative chamber going back almost to the first year of statehood for each state.
He authored U.S. Presidential Elections 1788-1860, the only reference book that has the popular vote totals in each state, and by county, for the period before 1824. He wrote four volumes of election returns for Governor, with the vote by county. Here is the Amazon author’s page giving details about each of his books.
What is most amazing is that he did his research without any institutional help. One would have thought that teams of university-connected individuals would have collected this type of data and published it, but no such team of academics ever did so. He did it on his own.
Venezuela’s constituent assembly has unanimously passed a new ballot access restriction that makes it very difficult for anyone to run against the incumbent president in the next election. See this New York Times story.
