Richard Johnston has this insightful Maclean’s article about the best form of proportional representation for British Columbia. Proportional representation is on the agenda in British Columbia, because when the Green Party’s three representatives in the legislature joined the government, they were promised that proportional representation would be taken seriously.
On October 2, one of the members of the Florida Constitution Review Commission said she will sponsor a change to the Florida Constitution pertaining to election law. Currently, Florida has closed primaries, except all registered voters can vote in the primary for a particular office if all the candidates for that particular office are from the same party. The proposed change would amend that, to say that “all candidates” only refers to candidates who filed to be on the ballot, not write-in candidates. See this press release from the Commission.
In the next few weeks, committees of the Commission will evaluate this idea. If it passes through committee, then the full commission will decide whether to adopt the idea. IF the full Commission adopts the idea, then the idea will appear on the ballot in November 2018 as a proposed Florida constitution change.
On October 27, the Kansas legislature, or its committees that handle election law bills, will hold a special informational hearing on ranked-choice voting, according to this story.
The Eleventh Circuit will hear Hall v Merrill, 16-16766, on Wednesday, December 13. This is the case over Alabama’s ballot access laws for independent candidates and newly-qualifying parties in special elections. The U.S. District Court had ruled in 2016 that requiring a petition of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote in special congressional elections is unconstitutionally difficult, because in a special election there is less time to complete the petition. The state is trying to get that ruling reversed. This case was first filed in 2013.
The plaintiff is James Hall, an independent candidate in the 2013 U.S. House special election that was needed when Congressman Jo Bonner resigned. He was replaced by Bradley Byrne.
On October 1, Ohio Governor John Kasich said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that there may come a time when he leaves the Republican Party. See this story.
