This article in the Washington Post’s The Fix explains new political science research by Andrew Hall and Daniel Thompson, of Stanford. Their research shows that when one of the major parties nominates an extremist for U.S. House, that nominee is more likely to lose the general election. This is partly because the extremist candidate’s existence causes increased voter turnout among the supporters of the other major party.
The plaintiffs in Citizens for Fair Representation v Padilla have written an amended complaint, designed to strengthen the case. This is the lawsuit that says ordinary voters in California have no true representation in the legislature, because State Senate districts have almost 1,000,000 population and Assembly districts have almost 500,000 population. Therefore, ordinary voters have virtually no chance to communicate meaningfully with their own state legislators.
The state does not agree that the court should permit an amended complaint. A hearing will be held August 25 on the issue of whether the amended complaint can be filed.
Ronald Miller was a write-in candidate for the Taylor, Michigan School District in November 2016. Shortly after the election, he checked the election returns in each precinct and learned that he had won one of the seats. However, when the city’s votes were officially tallied by the Wayne County Board of Commissioners, the Board excluded all write-ins in which his name wasn’t spelled properly. Therefore, the Board determined that he was not elected.
He sued to overturn the vote tally. On July 27, a state court agreed that Miller had been elected. See this story. For over 130 years, it is been basic law in the United States that the intent of the voter controls, when write-ins are being counted; perfect spelling is not required.
Taylor, Michigan, is a city of 63,000 population, near Detroit. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
Memphis, Tennessee, will use ranked choice voting for its city council elections, starting in 2019. The elections are non-partisan. The plan had passed in Memphis ten years ago, but it took a great deal of time for election officials to obtain vote-counting equipment that would work. See this story. Thanks to Electionline for the link.
On July 27, the South Dakota Libertarian Party, and the South Dakota Constitution Party, filed this brief against the state’s March petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties. Libertarian Party of South Dakota v Krebs, 4:15cv-4111.
The case was filed in 2015, and is still in U.S. District Court. It argues that the deadline is too early, especially given that winter in South Dakota is generally harsh for outdoor petitioning. After the case was filed, the legislature changed the deadline from March to July, but only for parties that want to be on the ballot for president and certain state executive partisan positions. The March deadline still applies to parties that want to run for Congress, legislature, or Governor.
In 2016, the Libertarian Party was unable to get its party petition finished by the March deadline, but it met the July deadline, so it was on for President and Public Service Commissioner, but no other offices.
