Iowa holds a special election on June 27 to fill the empty State House seat, 22nd district. According to this story, the Republican and Libertarian Parties placed a nominee on the ballot, but the Democratic nominee missed a filing deadline and will be a write-in candidate. There is also an independent candidate in this race.
In November 2016, the district had only the Republican incumbent on the ballot.
On June 6, California held a special U.S. House election run-off in the 34th district. Here is a link to the California Secretary of State’s web page, showing the votes. The race was between two Democrats. Although not all votes have been counted yet, so far only 32,869 votes are tallied for both of the two candidates (Jimmy Gomez 19,761; Robert Lee Ahn 13,108).
In November 2016, 159,156 votes were cast for this office. The November 2016 race was also between two Democrats, with voters not allowed to vote for anyone else.
The Montana special U.S. House election of May 25, 2017, had a turnout of 383,267 votes. However, to be fair, the Montana U.S. House district has a greater population than any other U.S. House district. In the Montana election, voters had a choice of three parties on the ballot, and write-in space was on the ballot.
In the Kansas special U.S. House election of April 11, 2017, the total vote cast for each of the three candidates on the ballot was 122,594. The Kansas ballot also had write-in space, but no declared write-in filed, so no one can know how many write-ins were cast.
This year’s New Jersey gubernatorial election will have seven candidates on the November 7 ballot. That is a smaller number of candidates for that office in the general election than at any time since 1989, when there were six.
The 2017 ballot will have the nominees of the Democratic, Republican, Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties, and two independents.
On June 7, the Maine Joint Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee passed LD 1571, after amending it so that it makes only modest improvements to the party qualification and retention process. The original version of the bill had made bigger improvements.
The bill makes it clear that the Libertarian Party is to be considered a qualified party for the 2018 election. But in 2018, both the Libertarian Party and the Green Party must have at least 10,000 registered members who actually go to the polls and vote, in order to remain on for 2020. This is the same requirement as in existing law, except that in the existing law a party must meet that requirement in its first year on the ballot, but the bill says in the case of a newly-qualifying party, that party need not meet that test until its second election year on the ballot.
The original version of the bill had said that any party can remain on the ballot if it has 5,000 registered members, without specifying that they must be individuals who actually cast a ballot. But that provision was deleted from the bill.
The amended bill makes a small improvement in the deadline for qualifying as a new party. Existing law says that deadline is December 1 of the year before the election. The bill changes that to January 2 of the election year.
This bill exists because in 2016, a U.S. District Court enjoined the December (of the odd year before the election) deadline for qualifying as a new party. The court said that deadline was probably unconstitutional, but did not actually make a decision about declaratory relief. Assuming the bill passes, the new deadline, January of the election year, will still probably be held unconstitutional if a new lawsuit is ever filed, but because the Libertarian Party is now on the ballot, of course the Libertarian Party no longer has any complaint. The original version of the bill moved the deadline to June and said newly-qualifying parties could nominate by convention, but that part has been deleted from the bill.
On June 6, 2017, U.S. District Court Judge William O. Bertelsman, a Carter appointee, struck down a Kentucky campaign finance contribution limit that discriminated in favor of the Republican and Democratic Parties, and against all other parties. Shickel v Dilger, e.d., 2:15cv-155. The law, sec. 121.015(3)(b), said that individuals could give $5,000 to a “caucus campaign committee”, which was defined as: “members of the following caucus groups who receive contributions and make expenditures to support or oppose one or more specific candidates or slates of candidates for nomination or election, or a committee: 1. House Democratic caucus campaign committee; 2. House Republican caucus campaign committee; 3. Senate Democratic caucus campaign committee; and 4. Senate Republican caucus campaign committee.”
Because the law specifically names Republican and Democratic committees, and gives them the ability to receive $5,000 contributions, the law is discriminatory. Individuals generally can only give $1,000 to a candidate for state or local office, so a $5,000 contribution limit for contributions to these Democratic and Republican committees is valuable. UPDATE: starting July 1, 2017, that candidate limit goes from $1,000 to $2,000, due to a bill that passed the legislature earlier this year.
The case was filed on August 24, 2015, and was argued on January 10, 2017. Two of the three plaintiffs are Libertarian candidates. The third plaintiff is a Republican State Senator, John Shickel. Shickel did not complain about section 121.015(3)(b). His part of the case challenged another law that made it illegal for a lobbyist to give anything whatsoever to a legislator. That law was also struck down, partly because it is vague and, if taken literally, almost absurdly draconian. The decision mentions it might even apply to a drink of water. Thanks to Ken Moellman for this news.
