On November 1, the Iowa Secretary of State released new voter registration data. The percentages: Republican 33.17%; Democratic 31.51%; Libertarian .42%; Green .13%; independent and miscellaneous 34.76%. The Libertarian and Green totals are not on the Secretary of State’s web page, but are 8,366 Libertarians and 2.671 Greens.
In February 2016, the percentages were: Republican 31.78%; Democratic 30.29%; Libertarian .30%; Green .09%; independent and miscellaneous 37.53%.
The Canadian government will soon postally mail literature to every household in Canada, informing readers that they are invited to visit a government web page and express themselves about proposals to change the electoral system, possibly to proportional representation. See this story.
The Socialist Party has a nominee for U.S. Senate from Nevada, Jarrod Williams. He is on the ballot as an independent, because the independent petition for statewide office in Nevada other than president is 250 signatures, whereas the petition for a newly-qualifying party this year was 5,431 signatures.
He is the first Socialist Party nominee to be on the ballot for a partisan office in Nevada since 1920. Here is the Socialist Party’s web page, listing its 2016 candidates. Thanks to Steve Rossignol for this news.
The Denver Post has this op-ed, documenting the large proportion of state legislative races in the United States that have only one candidate on the ballot. This is not a problem in Colorado, and the column notes that. But it is a big problem in many other states.
VoteCastr will attempt to tell the world what the vote for president is, in eight swing states, starting at 11 a.m. eastern time on election day. VoteCastr does this by first obtaining the names of voters who voted early, and then by using exit pollsters in seven of those states (but not in Colorado, where the vast majority of votes are cast by mail). The seven states are Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Slate explains how VoteCastr works here. Thanks to Political Wire for this news.
