Recently, supporters of Instant Runoff Voting for Duluth, Minnesota city elections submitted approximately 2,200 signatures on a city initiative petition. If the petition is valid, either the Duluth City Council will again consider whether the city should study Instant Runoff Voting, or the voters will decide that question.
Last month, the Duluth City Council voted 5-4 not to study IRV. Thanks to Bob Richard for this news.
On June 30, the Washington state legislature passed the budget bill, SB 6052. The Governor lined out a few appropriations but he did not line out funding for the presidential primary, so it will be held.
However, the date still is not determined. The existing law says it should be May 24 unless the Secretary of State and the two qualified parties agree to another date. It is likely the Republican Party will ask for an earlier presidential primary. The Democratic Party probably won’t want to use its presidential primary, but the Democratic Party is not likely to stop the Republicans from having an earlier primary. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
Another state which hasn’t settled the date of its 2016 presidential primary is North Carolina. The legislature came back into session last week.
On July 13, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker formally declared his candidacy for the Republican Party presidential nomination. That makes 17 candidates with the qualifications to be recognized by the Republican National Committee as bona fide candidates. Pollsters include all 17. For example, see this Monmouth University Poll released July 13.
In all U.S. history, the most crowded Republican presidential primary ballots were in 1996, when there were an average of 8.1 candidates on the ballot. Because half the states place candidates on the ballot automatically in presidential primaries if they are discussed in the news media (which means, in practice, if they are recognized as bona fide by the party and by pollsters), all these 17 candidates will be on the primary ballots in states with such laws. Thus, assuming few if any of the 17 drop out before ballots must be printed in December 2015 and January-March 2016, the 2016 Republican primary ballots will be the most crowded regularly-scheduled statewide elections in U.S. history.
No state has ever had as many as 17 presidential candidates on a ballot in a general election. The largest general election ballot for President was in 2012, when Colorado had 16. Colorado required no petition, just a fee of $500. Colorado has since raised the fee to $1,000.
Since 2012, no state except Arizona has made ballot access in presidential primaries more difficult. Virginia has made it easier. Arizona formerly had no requirements except that the candidate submit a declaration of candidacy and show that the candidate had at least one worker in Arizona. In 2015, Arizona added a requirement that the candidate be on the ballot in at least two other states, or else submit a petition of 500 names.
In 2012, New Hampshire had the most crowded Republican presidential primary ballot, with 30 candidates. Virginia had the least candidates, only two. The average in 2012 was 7.25 candidates and the median state had six candidates. New Hampshire almost always has the most crowded presidential primary ballots because the state requires no petition, just a fee of $1,000.
The Montana Republican Party’s lawsuit against Montana’s open primary is active. The case was filed on September 8, 2014, and argued that the Republican Party cannot be forced to let members of other parties help choose its nominees for public office or party office.
The case had been diverted for a while because the party had decided the strongest part of its case concerned the law that forced the party to choose party officers in an open primary. However on May 5, 2015, a new law was enacted that says parties no longer need to use the primary to choose party officers. All sides agree that the part of the lawsuit concerning election of party officers is now moot.
But the party is pursuing the other part of the lawsuit, concerning nominations for public office. On June 4 the Republican Party identified the political science experts it will be relying on to show that non-members have been voting in Republican Party primaries. The state will identify its experts on July 14. The case is Ravalli County Republican Central Committee v McCulloch, 6:14cv-58. The state Republican Party is a co-plaintiff, along with ten county parties.
The Ohio Libertarian Party’s lawsuit over whether its gubernatorial nominee should have been on the 2014 Libertarian primary ballot is still proceeding, and discovery is still underway. It had already been revealed that the Republican Party of Ohio had paid $300,000 to the attorneys for the individual who challenged the Libertarian gubernatorial primary petition. New information has recently emerged that the party actually paid $592,000.
The new figure would not have emerged, if the Republican consultant for the Republican gubernatorial campaign had not brought forth the new information in his own defense. He and the Kasich gubernatorial campaign had been charged with not reporting these legal fees in campaign disclosure reports. The consultant than revealed that he and the Kasich campaign had not paid the $592,000; instead the Ohio Republican Party had paid them.
Last year, the state chair of the Ohio Republican Party had testified that the Republican Party had nothing to do with the challenge. See this story.
