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.
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.
On October 5, the California Secretary of State released a new registration tally, as of September 9, 2016. Every qualified party gained registrations (in raw numbers) compared to the last tally (July 7, 2016) except that the Republican Party dropped 9,670 members and the Peace & Freedom Party dropped 836 members.
The current percentages are: Democratic 45.21%; Republican 26.78%; American Independent 2.50%; Libertarian .66%; Green .46%; Peace & Freedom .38%; unqualified parties .61%; no party preference 23.38%.
The July 2016 percentages were: Democratic 45.10%; Republican 27.09%; American Independent 2.52%; Libertarian .64%; Green .43%; Peace & Freedom .39%; unqualified parties .54%; no party preference 23.29%. The large increase in unqualified parties seems to be caused by Nevada and Trinity Counties transferring many voters from the “no party preference” to the “other” category.
The active unqualified parties in California, the Reform and Constitution Parties, did not re-file for political body status and thus no data is available for them in the latest tally.
Ever since December 2000, many individuals have said that Ralph Nader “caused” George W. Bush to win that year’s presidential election. This letter in USA Today by Oliver Hall provides what, in my opinion, is the most convincing rebuttal to that charge.
U.S. News & World Report has this story about the California presidential elector problem for Donald Trump in California.
