Utah holds a special U.S. House election for the Third District on November 7, 2017. The Tribune-Hinckley Institute Poll released October 18 shows these results: Republican 46%; Democratic 19%; United Utah 9%; Libertarian 3%; Independent American 2%; other and undecided 20%.
On October 17, Maine Representative Norman Higgins announced that he has changed his registration from Republican to independent. He was first elected in 2014 and represents part of Piscataquis County.
The Maine House now has 74 Democrats, 69 Republicans, 6 independents, 1 Green, and 1 vacancy. See this story.
On October 17, an Alaska Superior Court ruled that if the Democratic Party wants to let registered independents run in the Democratic primary, then the party can do that, even though it violates election law. Alaska Democratic Party v State, 1ju-17-563. See this story. The 33-page ruling can be read here.
If an independent wins the Democratic primary, then, according to the court ruling, he or she will be labeled on the November ballot as a Democrat, because that is the party that nominated the individual. Thanks to Jim Riley for the link.
Here is a news story from North Carolina about the passage of SB 656, the ballot access bill.
UPDATE: see this story, which says that two Democratic Representatives voted to override the Governor’s veto.
On the morning of Tuesday, October 17, the North Carolina House passed SB 656. Because the Senate passed it the day before, it is now law. Governor Roy Cooper had vetoed it, but the legislature has now overridden his veto.
Many Democratic members of the House said in debate on October 17 that they support the ballot access liberalization, but that they voted to uphold the gubernatorial veto because of the unrelated part of the bill that eliminates judicial primary elections in 2018.
As a result of the success of SB 656, there are now only four states without some means for a presidential candidate (running outside the two major parties) to get on the ballot with the support of 25,000 or fewer voters: California, Texas, Michigan, and Indiana. For U.S. House, the only states that ever require petitions in excess of 8,000 signatures are now Georgia and Illinois.
Here is the text of the final draft of SB 656.
