Jill Stein’s web page here announces a fund-raising drive to pay for a presidential vote recount in Wisconsin, and maybe Michigan and Pennsylvania also. She is entitled to a recount because she was on the ballot in those states. However, it is expensive. She does not want a recount because she is dissatisfied with her own vote count. She is asking for a recount to learn what effect such a recount would have on the Democratic and Republican vote totals.
The Charlie Cook Report presidential vote tally, as of the morning of November 23, shows Hillary Clinton with more than two million votes over Donald Trump. See it here.
Washington state defines a qualified party as one that got 5% for President. On election night, the Libertarian Party appeared to be receiving 4.8% of the presidential vote in Washington. But, only two-thirds of the votes had been counted, because Washington state votes by mail, and none of the ballots that arrived on election day had been processed yet. It takes time to process mail ballots, because the signature on the outer envelope must be checked against the signatures on the voter registration form.
As of the morning of November 23, Gary Johnson has 75 votes in excess of 5%. But, there are many more ballots to be counted, so it is difficult to predict whether he will hit 5%. Here are the results, which change daily. As of now, 3,190,778 votes have been counted for President. 5% of that number is 159,539. Johnson has 159,614. Thanks to Carla Howell for this news.
Before 2008, the Washington vote test was 5% for any statewide race, which was much easier to attain. The Libertarian Party polled over 5% for two statewide offices in 2000, so was last a qualified party in Washington for the period 2000-2004. When the top-two law went into effect, parties no longer had nominees for any office other than president, so the vote test became limited to just president.
Having qualified status would have no effect on Washington state elections for Congress and state office, but it would eliminate the need for the Libertarian Party to petition for president in 2020. If the Libertarian Party does get 5% for president in 2016, it would then be a qualified party in every state in the western half of the country.
Voter registration data for October 2016 shows that for the first time since 1991, if not the first time ever, there are more voters registered as independents or as members of third parties, than there are registered Republicans. The current data shows:
Democrats: 45,690,825, 40.60%
Republicans: 33,052,332, 29.37%
all others: 33,805,018, 30.04%
BAN has been tracking this data starting in 1992, and never before had the “other” registrants outnumbered either major party.
Many people believe that independents and minor party registrants comprise 40%. The sources of the confusion are polls that say 40% of voters identify as independents. The poll results and the actual registration data have never been closely aligned.
This Politico story says more than just two Democratic presidential electors are mulling over voting for someone other than Hillary Clinton. Their motive seems to be to encourage Republican presidential electors to have the courage to vote for someone other than Donald Trump. One of the Democratic electors says the college should return to the role that the founding fathers planned, to make their own decision as to who ought to be President. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
