Australia’s Senate is elected by proportional representation. On April 8, the Senate passed a bill altering the proportional representation method somewhat. See this story. One effect of the bill, if it becomes law, is that the very smallest parties would be less likely to win a seat.
Many counties and cities in Virginia have partisan elections for their own officers. Yet Virginia law says party labels for those partisan elections cannot appear on general election ballots. On April 8, Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, vetoed SB 767, a bill that would have put party labels on the November ballot for those offices. See this story.
It is rare in the United States for governments to hold partisan primaries, or provide for party nominating conventions, for certain offices, but keep the party labels off the November ballot. Besides local elections in Virginia, other examples are judicial elections in Michigan and Ohio.
On March 24, New York Assemblymember Fred W. Thiele (I-Sag Harbor) introduced AB 9661, to let independent voters vote in any party’s presidential primary. Thiele has been a registered member of the Independence Party since 2010, but in all the years he has been a member of the Independence Party, he also obtains the Democratic Party nomination when he runs for re-election.
On April 7, Pat Buchanan appeared on the Hannity Show and advised the Republican Party to nominate Donald Trump for President and Ted Cruz for Vice-President. Scroll down to about one-third of the way. Buchanan said, “Let me suggest something, Sean. Go with Trump and Cruz as a ticket.” Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
The New York State Board of Elections has released a tally of the number of registered voters in each party, as of April 1, 2016. This is the first new tally in New York since the November 1, 2015 tally.
The percentage of voters in each qualified party increased between November 2015 and April 2016, except that the Republican and Conservative shares declined. The number of independent voters also increased.
Democratic: from 49.19% to 49.40%
Republican: from 23.67% to 23.29%
Independence Party: from 4.02% to 4.06%
Conservative: 1.38% to 1.36%
Working Families: .405% to .412%
Green: .220% to .224%
Women’s Equality: only one-hundredth of 1% in both tallies, but raw numbers went from 602 to 1,283
Reform: raw numbers went from 78 to 377.
independents: 21.06% to 21.19%
The Libertarian Party is not ballot-qualified, but the state tracks its registrations. Libertarians had 5,856 registrants in early February and now have 6,017 registrants.
