On December 8, U.S. District Court Judge Wiley Daniel suggested that the lawsuit between two electors who plan to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton and the Colorado Secretary of State might be settled by mediation. The case is Baca v Hickenlooper, 1:16cv-2986.
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.
Late on December 7, the same U.S. District Court who had ordered Michigan to go ahead with the recount issued a new order, stopping the recount. In the meantime the Michigan state court of appeals had interpreted Michigan recount law to mean that Jill Stein is not an aggrieved candidate, so she has no authority to request a recount. See this story.
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.
On December 7, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman held a status conference in Kennedy v Secretary of State of Texas, w.d., 1:16cv-1047. This is Rocky De La Fuente’s case against the Texas ballot access laws for independent presidential candidates, and the Texas law that won’t let presidential primary candidates qualify as independent candidates. A trial be held starting January 15, 2018. This is far in the future, but allows time for discovery during 2017.
