John Pickerill, chair of the Montgomery County, Indiana, Republican Party, has left the Republican Party. He has become a Libertarian Party nominee for state legislature this year. See this story.
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On June 2, the Third Circuit issued a 31-page opinion in Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Cortes, 15-3046. It says that the U.S. District Court decision last year, invalidating Pennsylvania’s system that puts petitioning groups in danger of having to pay huge fees if their petitions are held to be invalid, was correct.
The Third Circuit says it is not deciding what to do about this situation for the 2016 election. The U.S. District Court in this same case had recently ruled that only the Third Circuit can decide whether to put the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties on the ballot this year with no petition. But that was because the Third Circuit had not yet ruled on the fees issue. Now that the Third Circuit has ruled, it is likely that the issue of how to handle things this year will return to the U.S. District Court.
Ilya Shapiro has this piece in USA Today, suggesting that three individuals might receive electoral votes in November 2016, thus depriving any candidate of a majority in the electoral college. He suggests the third person to receive electoral votes might be Gary Johnson. He speculates that Johnson could conceivably carry New Mexico. Then he also speculates that some Republican presidential electors from other states might “disobey” or “be faithless” and vote for Johnson instead of Trump. Thanks to the Center for Competitive Politics for the link.
For recent elections, exit polling in the United States has been mostly done by Edison Research, headquartered in New Jersey. Edison contracts with five television networks and the Associated Press to do the work of exit polling.
Last month, when Edison announced it would not do exit polling for the June 7, 2016 California presidential primary, individuals and groups who feel exit polling is needed set out to do their own exit poll. The Columbus Free Press, and the Columbus Institute of Contemporary Journalism, are organizing the effort. This is under the leadership of Bob Fitrakis, who is with the Ohio Green Party and who was active in 2004 in Ohio to investigate the 2004 Ohio presidential election returns. The 2016 California effort is paying persons $120 for a day of exit polling. In northern California, contact Tina Kimmel of Oakland, 510-910-3927. Thanks to Joan Strassel for this news. See the web page Trust Vote.
On May 31, Nebraska State Senator Laura Ebke announced that she had changed her registration from Republican to Libertarian. See this story.
She lives in Crete and was last re-elected in 2014. She is up in 2018 and has not decided if she will run again.
The last State Senator in Nebraska who was registered in a party other than Democratic or Republican was Ernie Chambers, who was a member of the New Alliance Party during 1988, and was that party’s nominee for U.S. Senate. Before that, the last third party members of the Nebraska legislature were in the Progressive Party, and were elected in 1922, 1924, and 1926. Thanks to Andy Craig for the link.