Some Mexican states held gubernatorial elections on Sunday, June 7. This is the first year in which independent candidates have been permitted to run for partisan office in Mexico. The voters of Nuevo Leon state gave an easy victory to Jaime Rodriguez, who will be Mexico’s first independent state governor.
Washington state only has eleven charter cities. According to this article, the Washington Attorney General will soon issue an opinion as to whether non-charter cities are permitted under state law to abandon at-large elections for city council.
Political scientist Corey Robin has this article at Politico. It says that in the U.S., employers sometimes coerce their employees into engaging in political action that supports politicians that the employer backs.
The article does not mention all-postal balloting. One fear that has been expressed by other writers is that if every voter votes by mail, there is less protection against coercion in voting. If the ballot is received in the mail, then the individual who is exerting coercion or other undue influence (such as bribery) has a chance to watch the voter mark the ballot before it is mailed back.
On June 2, Arkansas Representative Nate Bell switched from being a Republican to being an independent. See this story. He also says he does not plan to run for re-election in 2016.
Real Clear Politics has this commentary by James K. Glassman, criticizing the Commission on Presidential Debates. Glassman is a former Under Secretary of State, and a proponent of “Change the Rule” and “Level the Playing Field” and its ideas for improving entry into the presidential debates. Real Clear Politics holds itself out as non-partisan and non-ideological, but commentators generally think of it as a web page that leans to the Republican/conservative side.
By coincidence, if one looks at the link, one sees in the right-hand part of the page current polls for each major party’s presidential races. If one uses the data on those polls, and applies a hypothetical 15% polling rule for determining entry into the presidential primary debates, there could be no presidential primary debates for Republicans, because either one Republican, or zero Republicans, currently polls as much as 15%. The Commission on Presidential Debates only handles general election presidential debates and won’t let candidates below 15% into their debates.
