According to this story, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, will try to persuade the 2017 session of the legislature to ease the deadline for parties to switch parties. Current law forces voters who are registered in one party, but who want to vote in the primary of another party, to change more than six months before the primary. Schneiderman wants to ease the deadline to 25 days before the primary (if the change is submitted by postal mail) and 10 days before the primary, for individuals who appear in person at the voter registration office.

Canada is seriously looking at electoral reform. Fair Vote Canada favors proportional representation for House of Commons elections. Vote Canada recently released a study, describing the three best types of p.r. for Canada, and explaining how each one works.

Fair Vote Canada is opposed to any system of proportional representation that does not permit voters to vote for individual candidates. Thus all three recommended systems encompass that principle.

The three types recommended are: (1) Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), used in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales; (2) Single Transferrable Vote (STV), used in Ireland, Malta, parts of Great Britain and a few U.S. cities: (3) Rural-Urban, which would be a new form and which is essentially a combination of single-member districts in sparsely-populated areas and multi-members in densely-populated areas.

Here is a the Report. It has links to Appendices which explain each system. The Report itself makes the case for proportional representation in general. If you are interested in p.r. but have always wanted to understand it better, this document is an excellent reference. It is clear and doesn’t depend on computer presentation; it can be printed and disseminated on paper. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

On December 7, some Democratic members of Congress held a hearing on the electoral college. Several academics testified. See this story. No Republican members attended the hearing, which had been chaired by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan.