On February 3, the West Virginia Senate passed SB 249 by a vote of 25-8. The bill abolishes the straight-ticket device. All the Republicans who voted, voted in favor of the bill. About half the Democrats voted for the bill and half voted against it. All eight “no” votes were Democrats.
The West Virginia Senate is closely divided between the two major parties, but the House is strongly Republican. The bill therefore seems very likely to pass the House.
The California Secretary of State has determined that Americans Elect is no longer a qualified party in California. This is because it neither has enough registrations to qualify, nor did it poll 2% for any statewide race in the June 2014 primary. It did have a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Alan Reynolds, on the June 2014 ballot, but he polled 1.34%. UPDATE: here is the wording of the Secretary of State’s letter.
Ken Broder has this commentary about the January 29, 2015 decision in Rubin v Padilla at All Gov. Rubin v Padilla is the case concerning California’s top-two system.
On February 2, the United Independent Party announced it is launching its voter registration drive. The party will retain its ballot-qualified status into the indefinite future if it persuades 1% of the registered voters to join. The party is fortunate that the Massachusetts voter registration form has been re-issued, listing both the United Independent Party and the Green-Rainbow Party as choices with their own checkbox, along with the Democratic and Republican Parties, of course. Here is a link to the new voter registration form. The old form only listed the Democratic and Republican Parties, because they were the only qualified parties between November 2012 and November 2014. The Libertarian Party last appeared on the form in November 2010.
The Oregon January 2015 registration tally shows that the Independent Party has 109,349 registered members. Oregon law says a party with 5% of the statewide registration is entitled to its own government-administered primary. The calculation uses a denominator from the statewide total at the most recent gubernatorial election. The November 2014 statewide registration was 2,174,763, so the Independent Party now has five more voters than 5% of that denominator.
It is not certain that the Independent Party is thereby guaranteed a government primary in 2016, because conceivably it could lose registrations between now and the 2016 cutoff point. But because the party has been steadily growing, it is very likely that, having met the 5%, it will keep it and even increase its percentage. Thanks to Sal Peralta for this news.
The Oregon January 2015 registration tally is not yet on the Secretary of State’s web page.
