The Bangor Daily News has this account of the Friday, June 2 legislative hearing in Maine over ranked-choice voting. Thanks to IVN for the link.
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On June 11, Puerto Rico votes on its future political status. During April, the Puerto Rico government added a third option, for maintaining the status quo, Commonwealth status. Originally the vote was only going to include the choice of statehood, or independence.
The Governor and Speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives both strongly favor statehood. According to this story, the U.S. Justice Department required Puerto Rico to add the choice to maintain commonwealth status. Also see this story.
Here is a copy of the June 11 ballot.
On June 2, a trial court judge in Utah refused to enjoin the law that requires most candidates to file for office in-person. The plaintiff-candidate, Chia-Chi Teng, is currently in China. Utah law permits government employees and members of the military to avoid the requirement, but Professor Teng works for Brigham Young University, so he is not a state employee. See this story. The candidate may appeal to the Utah Supreme Court. He is running for Congress in the special election, 3rd district. The case is Teng v Cox, Salt Lake County, 17-0903450.
The Albuquerque Journal has this article (scroll down) mentioning that the Libertarian Party will have a primary in 2018. This will be the first time that the New Mexico Libertarian Party has ever before qualified for its own primary. If the party retains that status in the November 2018 election, it will also have a primary in 2020, along with its first New Mexico presidential primary.
Utah will hold a special election for U.S. House, 3rd district, on November 7, 2017. This Deseret News op-ed describes the struggle of the new United Utah Party to be able to place its nominee, Jim Bennett, on that ballot.
The party will probably file a lawsuit if the state continues to drag its feet on checking the party’s petition.