Minnesota Poll Suggests Green Party Will Regain its Qualified Status This Year

Posted on by July 6, 2014
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On July 5, Gravis Marketing released a poll for the Minnesota statewide races, including the Attorney General’s race. For that office, the results are: Democrat-Farmer-Labor Lori Swanson 49%, Republican Sharon Anderson 36%, Independence Party nominee Brendan Borgos 8%, Green Andy Dawkins 7%.

If Dawkins receives as much as 5%, the Green Party will regain its qualified status, for both 2016 and 2018. The Green Party hasn’t been a qualified party in Minnesota since November 2004.

The poll seems somewhat peculiar because when one adds up the percentages for each candidate, there is no room left for voters who say they are undecided. Thanks to Michael for the link.

Write-in Totals for Minor Party Candidates in California’s June 3, 2014 Primary

Posted on by July 5, 2014
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Here is the number of votes received by each minor party write-in candidate in the California June 3, 2014 primary (except that the results still aren’t available for the Assembly, 5th district):

Board of Equalization district 3: Libertarian Jose Castaneda 173; Peace & Freedom Eric Moren 127; Peace & Freedom Jan Tucker 34.

U.S. House district 11: American Independent Virginia Fuller 140.

U.S. House district 23: Libertarian Gail Lightfoot 31.

U.S. House district 43: American Independent Brandon Cook 12.

U.S. House district 44: Peace & Freedom Adam Shbeita 5.

Assembly 5: Libertarian Patrick D. Hogan 60.

Assembly 41: Libertarian Ted Brown 84.

Assembly 60: Libertarian John Farr 34.

Assembly 75: Libertarian Mike Paster 14.

Assembly 79: American Independent George R. Williams 115.

The only three who will appear on the November ballot are Shbeita, Hogan, and Williams, because in each case they placed second. In all three cases, only one name was on the primary ballot, and the minor party write-in candidate was the only declared write-in candidate. Therefore none of these three could have been kept off the November ballot, unless they had polled zero write-ins.

Dennis Kucinich Says he Favors Proportional Representation

Posted on by July 5, 2014
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Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich was recently on the Amy Goodman radio show. Goodman asked him, “Proportional representation is really the name of the game in Sweden, right? Anyone who gets – I think it’s 4% of the vote, can be represented in Parliament. Can you comment on this? It’s a growing movement in the United States.

Kucinich replied: Well, it should happen. So, it’s really a step towards democratization, so that points of view that are held in the general populace are not squelched because they don’t reach some numerical sigificance that we call a majority. You know, majority politics are all very interesting, but what’s happening in the United States, with increasingly blurring the differences between the two parties, there’s a hunger for alternatives, and there’s a hunger for those alternatives to find a means of inclusion into the process. So, certainly, that’s one way to do it. And we need to broaden our discussion in America. When you come here (to Sweden) and you see so many different political persuasions represented, and our politics back home are monochromatic – I mean, increasingly. It’s grey, and you can’t really tell the difference. Here, you can. But at the same time, there’s a common commitment to the nation. We need to awaken those sentiments in America. And one way to do it is proportional representation.”

Thanks to Steve Hill for this information.