The April 2015 special election for Florida State House, district 64, will include only one candidate listed on the ballot, running against a write-in candidate. See this story. It is the same candidate who already won the seat in the November 4, 2014 election. His election was determined by the legislature to be void because his primary had been open to all registered voters, even though a write-in candidate had filed to run against him in the general election.
On December 16, President Obama signed the spending bill that includes a provision to make possible larger donations from individuals to national committees of political parties.
On December 16, an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit heard arguments in Chula Vista Citizens for Jobs v Norris, 12-55726. The issue is whether proponents of a local initiative have a privacy right to keep their names off the initiative petition. The proponents formed an organization and the organization is willing to be listed on the petition as the proponent, but state law requires that individuals must be listed as the proponents. See this account of the oral argument.
The original Ninth Circuit panel had struck down the law by a vote of 2-1, but then the government obtained a rehearing en banc.
On December 16, the United States Election Project revised its turnout data for the November 2014 election. See the data here. Not every state tabulates the number of people who cast a ballot, so the authors created the middle column, based on the number of votes cast for all the candidates for the office that attracted the most votes. The middle column is the best way to compare turnout in all 50 states.
Chicago holds city elections in February 2015. There are three citywide offices, Mayor, Treasurer, and City Clerk. The elections are non-partisan. All candidates need 12,500 signatures to get on the ballot. If no one gets 50% in February, there is a run-off in April.
For Mayor, ten candidates submitted a petition, but one candidate then withdrew, leaving nine petitions. For Treasurer, only one person filed. For City Clerk, two candidates filed. From those remaining twelve petitions, nine have been challenged, including both petitions for City Clerk. Here is a link to the Chicago Board of Elections web page listing the petitions and their status.
The challenges will be heard starting on Friday, December 19. Here is an article about Willie Wilson, one of the Mayoral candidates whose petition was challenged, even though he submitted 47,500 signatures. Here is a more recent article about Wilson and his reaction to the challenge of his petition.
