On May 7, three Democratic members of Congress introduced bills in each House to change public funding for presidential candidates. The bills don’t have numbers yet, but this press release describes the bills. Current law requires presidential candidates to raise $5,000 in small donations from each of 20 states. The bill would increase that to $25,000 from each of 20 states.

The bill’s sponsors are U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and U.S. House members Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and David Price (D-N.C.). They introduced almost the same bill in 2012 but it did not advance.

Minor party and independent presidential candidates who have received primary season public funding include Sonia Johnson of the Citizens Party in 1984, Lenora Fulani of the New Alliance Party in 1988 and 1992, John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party, Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party, Ralph Nader in 2000, 2004, and 2008, Jill Stein in 2012, and Gary Johnson in 2012. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

Here are predictions for the British election of May 7, based on exit polling.

On May 6, the Pew Research Center issued this report, comparing voter turnout in the most recent important election in each of the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). There are 34 countries in OECD.

When turnout is computed using the number of voters as a percentage of the voting-age population, the U.S. places fourth from the bottom. The chart emphasizes that method for comparing turnout, by using blue dots on the graph. The same graph also calculates turnout as a percentage of the number of registered voters. The U.S. does better when that method is used. The graph shows that method also, but with lighter-colored orange dots that aren’t as easy to see. The Report says that the method of calculating turnout as a percentage of registered voters is misleading, because in most OECD countries the vast majority of the eligible electorate is registered to vote, something that is not true in the United States.

The U.S. would have looked far worse if the report had used the U.S. congressional election of 2014 instead of the presidential election of 2012.