On December 13, Douglas Kellner, co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections, testified in a New York city council committee. He strongly recommended that the city implement ranked choice voting in citywide primaries. He said the existing city provision requiring a primary runoff would be terribly expensive and difficult to implement. He said the city was very lucky that no primary runoff was required this year in the Reform Party mayoral primary. Because the Reform Party invites all registered independent voters into its primaries, a Reform Party runoff would have required to city to print hundreds of thousands of ballots. See this story. He said if the city does not provide for ranked choice ballots, then the city should abolish primary runoffs. Thanks to Frank Morano for the link.

Pennsylvania is unique for its failure to update its election code when election laws are struck down (or when state election officials determine that a law would be struck down and therefore won’t be enforced). Here is a list of eleven such laws.

1. In 1984, in Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania v David, m.d., 84-0262, the state conceded that the May petition deadline for minor party and independent candidates is unconstitutionally early. The state consented to accept petitions up until August 1 of any election year.
2. In 1993, in Patriot Party of Pennsylvania v Mitchell, 826 F.Supp. 926 (e.d.), the number of signatures required for minor party and independent petitions in odd years, for statewide office, was struck down. That was because the turnout in even years is so much higher, and the requirements for odd years were based on even-year elections, so that the petitioning burden was far higher in odd years than in even years.
3. In 1999, in Reform Party of Allegheny County v Allegheny County Dept. of Elections, 174 F.3d 305, the ban on fusion between two unqualified parties, or between a qualified party and an unqualified one, was struck down.
4. In 2001, the lawsuit Public Interest v Armstrong County Bd. of Elections, w.d., 01-1616, enjoined the law that said an unqualified party could not nominate someone who had not been a member for the past several months. The basis was that the restriction did not apply to qualified parties.
5. In 2002, Morrill v Weaver, 224 F.Supp.2d 882 (e.d.), the requirement that circulators for a candidate running for district office must live in that district was struck down.
6. In 2003, in Belitskus v Pizingrilli, 343 F.3d 632 (3rd circuit), the failure of the state to provide any alternative to filing fees, at least for poor candidates, was declared unconstitutional.
7. In 2006, the Pennsylvania Attorney General instructed the Department of State to stop requiring candidates to sign a statement that they are not “subversive persons.”
8. In 2015, in Green Party of Pennsylvania v Aichele, e.d., 2:14cv-3299, the law requiring petitions to be notarized was struck down.
9. Also in the 2015 decision, the law forbidding voters from signing only one general election petition (for any particular office) was struck down.
10. Also in the 2015 decision, the ban on out-of-state circulators was struck down.
11. In 2016, in Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Cortes, e.d., 5:12cv-2726, the state agreed that it would not require statewide petitions to be signed by more than 5,000 voters.