The Federal Elections Commission’s excellent reference book, Federal Elections 2016, which has election returns (primary and general) for all federal office, won’t be available until December 2017. Originally the FEC had thought it would be out in November 2017. The book, when it appears, will be free.
On November 7, the city of Duchesne, Utah, held non-partisan elections for city office. Two officers of the local Constitution Party won their races. Rodney Rowley won a contested race for Mayor, with 63% of the vote. Danny Peatross won an uncontested race for city council.
Maine supporters of ranked choice voting are conducting a referendum petition drive, to fight last month’s new Maine law that suspends ranked choice voting until 2021. If the supporters obtain approximately 61,000 signatures in the next 80 days, the October 2017 law will be suspended until the voters vote on it in November 2018. If the law is suspended, then Maine will use ranked choice voting in the June 2018 primary.
The first day the petition could circulate happened to be November 7, 2017, which was local election day in Maine. Supporters of ranked choice voting collected signatures at the polls, and obtained approximately 33,000 signatures that day.
On November 13, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Minnesota Voters Alliance v Mansky, 16-1435. This is the case concerning Minnesota’s law forbidding any clothing at the polls, or anything attached to clothing, that has any political content. The lower federal courts had upheld the law.
It seems more likely than not that the Supreme Court will strike down the law. If so, depending on the reasoning, the eventual decision might be helpful to fight the California policy that does not permit a member of an unqualified party to have his or her party affiliation on the ballot, even though California does permit such party affiliations for candidates who are members of qualified parties. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
On November 7, many municipalities in Montana held city elections. In Hardin and also in Lodge Grass, a write-in candidate was elected Mayor. In both cases the write-in candidate defeated candidates whose names were on the ballot. They winners were Joe Purcell in Hardin, and James Dabney in Lodge Grass. See this story. Thanks to Darryl Perry for the link.
