The North Carolina State Board of Elections has a new voter registration tally on its web page. The current percentages are: Democratic 41.60%; Republican 30.57%; Libertarian .41%; independents and miscellaneous 27.42%.
Just prior to the November 2014 election, the percentages were: Democratic 41.76%; Republican 30.37%; Libertarian .39%; independents and miscellaneous 27.49%. Thanks to Ray Ubinger for this news.
Connecticut holds three special legislative elections on Tuesday, February 24. One of them is for the State Senate, 23rd district, in Bridgeport. The Working Families Party nominee, Edwin A. Gomes, is a registered member of the party, and he is given some chance of winning. He is a former Democratic State Senator from this district, but he was defeated in the 2012 Democratic primary. The special election has five candidates on the ballot: Gomes, Democratic nominee Richard DeJesus, Republican nominee Quentin Dreher, independent candidate Rev. Kenneth Moales, and independent candidate Charles Hane.
The special election was triggered when Senator Andres Ayala resigned to become head of the state’s Motor Vehicles department. In November 2014, Ayala had been the only candidate on the ballot. Ayala received 9,476 votes on the Democratic line and 807 on the Working Families line.
Gomes is at a disadvantage because Connecticut’s discriminatory public funding law gives the Democratic nominee $71,017 in campaign funds. Because the Working Families Party didn’t poll as much as 10% in this district in November 2014, Gomes can’t receive any public funding unless he completes a petition signed by 10% of the last vote cast in this district. He can’t receive equal public funding unless his petition has 20% of the last vote cast. Nevertheless, it is not known if his petition succeeded.
A U.S. District Court in Ohio will hold a trial in Duncan v Husted, s.d., 2:!3cv-1157, on June 22. This is the case in which an independent candidate challenges a new Ohio law that says independent candidates must complete their petition within one year. The law is discriminatory because it doesn’t tell candidates running in a primary that they must finish up their petitions in any particular period of time. Nor does the law tell a newly-qualifying party that it must complete its petition within one year.
Laws that limit the amount of time for a petition to be completed discriminate in favor of candidates and parties that can afford to hire paid circulators, versus those who can’t. The plaintiff, Richard Duncan, was the only independent presidential candidate who qualified for the Ohio 2012 ballot. He lives in Ohio and he does all his own petitioning. It takes him several years to accumulate 5,000 valid signatures. He believes the new law was passed with the goal of blocking his 2016 independent presidential petition. He had also successfully petitioned as an independent for President in Ohio in 2008.
In 2012, he received 12,502 votes in Ohio for President, more votes than two other presidential candidates who were on the Ohio ballot received. Socialist Party nominee Stewart Alexander only received 2,944 votes in Ohio, and Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode, a former member of Congress, only received 8.151.
Political Science Professor Michael McDonald has a webpage that posts turnout data for each state. McDonald determines the number of ballots cast in each state, and divides that by the voting-eligible population. “Voting-eligible population” means not only the number of registered voters, but the number of people who could register if they chose to. The webpage shows turnout for all recent congressional and presidential elections. To see the 2014 data, see here. To see the 2010 data, see here.
When one compares 2014 to 2010, one sees that California easily had the sharpest drop in turnout of any state. The 2010 California turnout was 45.8%, and the 2014 California turnout was 30.0%. Comparing those percentages shows that the 2014 percentage was only 67.2% of the 2010 percentage. No other state had a ratio lower than .7. For the nation as a whole, the 2014 turnout was 88% of the 2010 turnout.
One likely reason that California’s turnout in 2014 slipped so badly relative to 2010 is that in November 2010, voters were given a choice of six parties for the statewide offices, whereas in November 2014 California was the only state in which it was impossible for anyone to vote in any statewide race unless that voter voted for a Republican or a Democrat. In November 2010, over 10% of the voters had voted for a minor party candidate for Lieutenant Governor or Insurance Commissioner.
On February 20, the last possible day, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo chose May 5 for the special election for the U.S. House seat, 11th district. See this story. He had been told by a U.S. District Court to either set a date by February 20, or explain why he wouldn’t do that. The Governor’s action ends the controversy and the lawsuit.
