The Sioux City Journal has this article about the Centrist Project. In 2014 it backed a few strong independent candidates for U.S. Senate, including Larry Pressler in South Dakota. It plans to do that again in 2016. The article quotes Greg Orman, a strong independent for U.S. Senate in Kansas in 2014, that independents are in a better position to win when they have opponents from both major parties.
The Donald Trump campaign is threatening to sue the Virginia Republican Party over the party’s recent decision to change procedures at the polls at the March 1 presidential primary. Virginia does not have registration by party. But the state party recently voted to place the sentence, “My signature below indicates that I am a Republican” on its sign-in tally books. See this story.
The Republican Party of Virginia did not require this in 2012 or 2008, and in 2004 there was no Republican presidential primary in Virginia. The state party put this policy in place in September 2015, and party officials are criticizing the Trump campaign for waiting until now to object. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On December 30 The Atlantic posted this article by Christopher Caen (son of famous San Francisco writer Herb Caen) about top-two systems. The article is balanced. However, it has factual errors. It says that before used the top-two system, independents could not vote in primaries. This is incorrect. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties allowed independents to vote in their primaries (for all office covered by the top-two system) in the decade before the top-two system went into effect. For proof, see this page on the California Secretary of State web page.
The article also says that California State Senator Steve Glazer would not have won under the system in place before top-two. But before California used top-two, it used a blanket primary for all special congressional and legislative elections. Glazer was elected in a special election in 2015. He easily polled more votes in the first round than any other Democrat running, so under the old blanket primary rules, he would have been the only Democrat in the run-off and he easily would have beat his Republican opponent.
The article also focuses on Abel Maldonado, without noting the irony that in Maldonado’s many runs for partisan office, he always won in his home area counties of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, until he had to run in a top-two election. That election was for Congress in 2012, and he lost those two counties to Lois Capps, the incumbent Democratic member of Congress.
The article does not say anything about how California’s turnout has plummeted under top-two. California voter turnout declined more between November 2010 and November 2014 than any other state. The article says nothing about findings of political science research that the top-two system does not elect more moderate candidates. For example, see the exhuastively researched paper by Eric McGhee, Seth Masket, Boris Shor, Steven Rogers, and Nolan McCarty titled “A Primary Cause of Partisanship? Nominations Systems and Legislator Ideology.” It is in the American Journal of Political Science.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections web page now shows that Rocky De La Fuente has 10,018 valid signatures. He needs 10,000 in order to be listed on the Democratic presidential primary ballot. He is the only presidential primary candidate this year who made a serious attempt to complete this petition. The other Democrats and Republicans listed on the North Carolina presidential primary ballots did not need a petition, because the Board put them on the ballot automatically because they are discussed in news media. Thanks to Deez Nuts for this news.
Florida State Senator Arthenia Joyner has introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to be considered by the 2016 session of the legislature. It would create a nonpartisan redistricting commission. The existing system, in which the legislature draws the districts but is required not to let partisan considerations sway the plans, hasn’t worked very well. See this story.
