Commonwealth Magazine is a quarterly print publication as well as an on-line magazine. The Summer 2015 issue has this detailed article advocating that Boston use instant runoff voting for its city elections. The article explains how the system works in elections that elect multiple winners, such as at-large city council seats. Thanks to Dave Holtzman for the link.
According to this story, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore will announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination soon. That makes 17 Republican presidential candidates with the qualifications to be recognized as bona fide by the Republican National Committee.
If there were a top-two system in place for President, and the first round were held now, it is likely that the top two vote-getters would be Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and then they would be the only candidates in the election itself. That is because the Republican field is so split up. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
On July 7, several New Jersey voters who do not wish to be registered members of any party asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their lawsuit, Balsam v Secretary of State of New Jersey. They argue that partisan primaries are integral stages of the election process, and that it is unconstitutional to exclude any voters from any stage of the election process.
New Jersey has a closed primary system. Only party members can vote in primaries. However, on primary day, any registered voter who is not a member of any party is free to ask for a primary ballot; but if the voter does that, he or she will be listed as a member of that party. The voter is free to re-register immediately afterwards and regain independent status.
The lower courts had upheld New Jersey’s system. The Third Circuit oral argument was on March 16 and the decision was released on April 8.
According to Michael Drucker’s story at TheIndependentView, the documents recently filed by the New York Women’s Equality Party, listing party officers and bylaws, are legally defective.
When a group that had not previously been a qualified party polls at least 50,000 votes for Governor, it becomes a qualified party in New York. However, it must then file a list of its officers and its bylaws. The documents must be signed by a majority of the group’s statewide candidates in the preceding general election. The Women’s Equality Party nominated four statewide candidates (all of them were also the Democratic and Independence Party nominees). Only two of them signed the documents. The party’s nominees for Attorney General and Comptroller did not sign the documents. This may mean that the Women’s Equality Party won’t be able to function as a qualified party in this year’s elections.
The two candidates who didn’t sign are Eric Schneiderman, the state’s Attorney General, and Tom DiNapoli, the state Comptroller. It is likely that they are sophisticated in matters of election law and they are deliberately not interested in helping establish the Women’s Equality Party; this does not appear to be an accident. It is plausible that the Working Families Party asked Schneiderman and DiNapoli to abstain from signing. The Working Families Party opposed Governor Andrew Cuomo’s idea of creating the Women’s Equality Party.
The New York November 2014 ballot did not let voters choose to vote for Schneiderman or DiNapoli on the Women’s Equality line. Instead the ballot put the label “Women’s Equality” inside the same box on the ballot that was used for voters to vote for those two candidates on the Independence Party line.
On June 10, 2015, Dennis A. Hof changed his registration from “Republican” to “Libertarian”. On July 6, he said he is considering seeking the party’s U.S. Senate nomination next year. Hof is somewhat well-known. He is an author and owner of several houses of prostitution, and has been the star of a television show. See this story about him.
