On March 28, the Tennessee House Subcommittee on Local Government passed HB 662. It lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote (33,816 signatures) to exactly 5,000. The bill was amended to provide that small qualified parties would always nominate by convention, not primary, which would save taxpayer dollars. The vote in the subcommittee was 3-2. The bill now goes to the full Committee. Thanks to Daniel Lewis for this news.
This Salon story seems to indicate that backers of a California initiative to split the state into two states have enough funds to get their idea on the 2018 ballot.
The Commission on Presidential Debates, founded in 1987, has always had two co-chairs, one of whom was a current or former high-ranking officer of the Democratic Party, and the other was a current or former high-ranking officer of the Republican Party.
But in January 2017, that changed. The co-chair associated with the Democratic Party, Mike McCurry, left the Commission and was replaced by Dorothy S. Ridings, who has never been a party officer in any political party. She is 80 and lives in Louisville, Kentucky. In the past she was Chair of the Council on Foundations, and long ago she was the national head of the League of Women Voters. The Commission did not issue any press release when this change was made. Thanks to IVN and Nick Bolelli for this news.
The National Conference of State Legislatures publishes an on-line publication about election law, The Canvass, every week. Here is a lengthy story in Ranked Choice Voting in The Canvass of March 28.
As of March 28, these are the Oklahoma voter registration totals by party: Republican 991,967; Democratic 850,509; Libertarian 4,125; independent and miscellaneous 319,091.
The totals in October 2016 were: Republican 983,932; Democratic 856,717; Libertarian 3,599; independent and miscellaneous 313,191.
The percentages now are: Republican 45.80%; Democratic 39.27%; Libertarian .19%; independent and miscellaneous 14.73%. The percentages in October 2016 were: Republican 45.61%; Democratic 39.71%; Libertarian .17%; independent and miscellaneous 14.52%.
Although the Libertarian total is still low, it is the highest for any third party in Oklahoma since 1972, when the American Party had 6,035. The Reform Party never had as many as 1,000 registrants in Oklahoma.
