The Hill has this article, advocating Instant Runoff Voting in U.S. presidential elections, authored by Professor Okla Elliott.
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Salon has this article by Professor Sophia McClennen, making the case for Instant Runoff Voting in U.S. presidential elections in very strong terms. Thanks to Lance for the link.
On June 30, James Foster, an independent candidate for Mayor of Philadelphia last November, filed a federal lawsuit against the sponsors of the three mayoral general election debates. The sponsors excluded him from all debates. The case is Foster v The Committee of 70, e.d., 2:16cv-3598.
It is somewhat unusual for an excluded candidate to sue debate sponsors months after the election was over. The law on debates is that there must be objective criteria for debate sponsors to use, when deciding whom to invite. See this story, which has a copy of Foster’s Complaint.
Philip Pidot is a Republican seeking his party’s nomination for U.S. House, New York 3rd district. New York held its congressional primary on June 28, but Pidot was not on the ballot. Because only one Republican was on the ballot, and no one had filed as a write-in, the primary in that district for the Republicans was not actually held.
But Pidot had petitioned to be on the primary ballot, and he finally won a court battle in state court, determining that he had enough valid signatures. The state courts had said he had enough valid signatures but that it was too late for him to get on the primary ballot, so he had then filed a lawsuit in federal court to get a new primary date, just for the Republican Party in the 3rd district. On June 29, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Bianco refused to dismiss Pidot’s case, and set a new hearing for July 11, in the federal courthouse in Islip, at 1:30 p.m., courtroom 1020. See this story.
On June 29, U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell moved the hearing in Arizona Libertarian Party v Reagan from August 5 to July 12. The issue is the constitutionality of the bill passed last year that sharply expands the number of write-in votes Libertarians need in their own primary in order to be considered nominated, and also the number of signatures needed for a Libertarian to get on the primary ballot. The primary is August 30. On July 1, the party filed its reply brief.
The hearing is 10:30 a.m. in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, room 603. A few newspaper stories have appeared in Arizona lately saying the State Supreme Court upheld the new law. These stories are incorrect. The only action the state courts took was to determine that the party’s candidate for U.S. Senate failed to obtain enough signatures to get on the party’s primary ballot; the state courts have not said anything about the constitutionality of the new law.