Political scientist professor Alan I. Abramowitz and PhD student Steven Webster have published this essay about partisanship in the United States. The main point is to show that over half of Americans have strong hostility and dislike toward one major party. The dislike of one major party among these voters is stronger than their liking for the other major party. Increasingly, the United States is divided into two camps of voters who not only dislike one of the major parties, but dislikes their members as well.

The essay also asserts that only 10% of the electorate is truly independent.

The essay does not mention Federalist Papers No. 10, written by James Madison. Madison warned against having just two parties. He wrote that the United States would enjoy greater security if there were a greater variety of parties than just two. This point is in the last three paragraphs of Federalist No. 10. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link to the Abramowitz-Webster paper.

On June 3, the Latvian Parliament chose Raimonds Vejonis to be the new President of Latvia. See this story. He is apparently the first Green Party politician to become head of state of any nation.

As has been previously reported, this year the Oklahoma legislature finally passed some improvements in ballot access for newly-qualifying parties, and Governor Mary Fallin signed it the day after she received it.

The legislative session ended last month, and the ballot access bill, HB 2181, is one of only six bills on election law that passed this year. Furthermore, three of them are still on the Governor’s desk for her action.

Besides ballot access, the two bills that have been signed are SB 313, letting voters register on-line; and SB 173, which lets notaries public notarize up to 100 absentee ballot requests. All three of the election law bills that have already been signed were recommended by the Oklahoma Policy Institute.

The other three election law bills that passed, but which the Governor hasn’t acted on, are: SB 312, consolidating local election dates to just four per year; SB 114, which helps election officials keep the voter registration list up-to-date; and SB 849, which exempts some employees of the State Election Board from civil service.

The only election law bill that the Oklahoma Policy Institute recommended, but which did not pass, is SB 315, to set up a roster of permanent absentee voters.