The Week has this perceptive essay by Meagan Day, asking why Democrats are so infuriated by voters who vote for the Green Party for president, yet pay so little attention to all the voters who left president blank on their 2016 ballots, or who didn’t vote at all.
The Oregon Senate Rules Committee will hear testimony on HB 2927 on Wednesday, June 21, at 1 p.m. This is the national popular vote plan bill that has already passed the House.
Oregon seems to be the only state in which a national popular vote plan bill has any chance of passing in 2017.
The Sacramento Bee has this op-ed by Mike Feinstein of the California Green Party. It criticizes AB 469, which shrinks the amount of time available for candidates to get on a California primary ballot, if the candidate wishes to circulate the petition in lieu of the filing fee. The bill does also shrink the number of signatures, but the reduction in the number of signatures is smaller proportionately than the amount of lost time.
AB 469 has already passed the Assembly and has a hearing in the Senate Elections Committee on Tuesday, June 20.
On June 19, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay in Gill v Whitford, the Wisconsin partisan gerrymandering case. The vote was 5-4. The justices chosen by Democratic presidents were in the minority. This means that until the case is settled, the old districts will remain in effect. The stay came down about an hour after the court had agreed to hear the case. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
The New Jersey Elections office has released new voter registration data. The percentage of registered independents declined. The percentage of voters registered in each political party increased.
The June 2017 percentages are: Democratic 36.08%; Republican 21.31%; Libertarian .12%; Conservative .09%; Constitution .08%; Green .08%; Socialist .04%; Natural Law .03%; Reform .01%; independent 42.16%. Here is a link to the numbers of voters in each party, in each county.
The November 2016 percentages were: Democratic 35.64%; Republican 20.82%; Libertarian .09%; Conservative .06%; Green .05%; Constitution .04%; Socialist .02%; Natural Law .02%; Reform .01%; independent 43.24%.
The percentages for the minor parties are low because the voter registration form itself only has a blank line for the question about political party choice, and most voters aren’t aware that they can choose any of nine parties. There is a separate form that does list all the party choices, however, but it isn’t clear whether it gets much distribution. Thanks to Bill Redpath for this news.
