U.S. District Court Sets Hearing Date in January for Presidential Debates Lawsuit

Posted on by October 6, 2016
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On October 6, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan set a hearing date in Level the Playing Field v Federal Election Commission, D.C. 1:15cv-1397. This is case filed on June 22, 2015 by Level the Playing Field, Peter Ackerman, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein. The lawsuit argues that the FEC is obliged to rule that the Commission on Presidential Debates is illegally ignoring the federal campaign finance laws. The CPD depends on large contributions from for-profit corporations, to pay for its debates. Yet federal campaign laws do not allow corporations to donate to federal candidates. The lawsuit argues that the CPD is in effect assisting both the Democratic and Republican nominees against all of their competitors.

The hearing will be January 5, 2017, at 10 a.m., courtroom 2, in the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. This will be the first hearing in this case.

This case should not be confused with Johnson v Commission on Presidential Debates, which already lost in U.S. District Court and is now in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. circuit. Johnson v CPD argues that the CPD is in violation of federal anti-trust laws.

Evan McMullin Speaks, but Doesn’t Give Audience a Chance to Ask Questions

Posted on by October 6, 2016
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Evan McMullin addressed the public on the evening of October 5, in the Provo public library. See this story at Independent Political Report. IPR reporter Joseph Buchman was in the audience. Buchman hoped to be able to ask MuMullin some questions, but McMullin did not take questions from the audience.

One question that McMullin has not answered is why he didn’t file any constitutional ballot access cases. When he announced his campaign on August 8, he had said he would do that. He had very strong potential lawsuits against Wyoming and Florida, states which kept him off the ballot even though he satisfied the requirements.

Bangor Daily News Carries Op-Ed by Larry Diamond on Instant Runoff Voting Initiative

Posted on by October 6, 2016
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Maine voters will decide on November 8 whether to use Instant Runoff Voting for Congress and state office. Larry Diamond, a long-time scholar of elections and government, has this op-ed in support of the idea.

There has been at least one poll recently and it seems to show the initiative will pass. UPDATE: also see this Bloomberg View columnist’s article on why IRV would work better than the current system. Thanks to Rick Hasen for that link.

National Presidential Poll Asks About Four Presidential Candidates, and Then Asks Same Respondents to Choose Among Clinton, Trump, Prohibition, and Workers World Nominees

Posted on by October 5, 2016
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On October 5, Falrleigh Dickinson University released a presidential poll, which asks about Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein. The results: Clinton 45%; Trump 36%; Johnson 11%; Stein 3%; other 1%; don’t know 3%; refused 1%.

Then the same respondents were asked, suppose the only presidential candidates were Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Jim Hedges of the Prohibition Party, and Monica Moorehead of the Workers World Party. The purpose was to see if the support for Johnson and Stein is genuine, or whether the respondents were telling pollsters they would vote for anyone other than Clinton and Trump. Those results: Clinton 47%; Trump 35%; Hedges 4%; Moorehead 3%; other 3% (the respondents had to volunteer that); don’t know 7%; refused 2%.

Scroll down to the third chart to see those results. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.