This article about spending in California’s 2014 statewide elections has lots of interesting information, but one especially interesting point is that John Chiang, a Democrat, spent only $24,293 on his election campaign. In November he won with 58.8% of the vote.
Bills have been introduced in both Massachusetts and Vermont to provide that overseas absentee presidential primary ballots should allow a limited form of ranked-choice voting. Both states in 2016 will have March 1 presidential primaries, and in both states, the ballot will just be for president, not other office. The bills would provide that overseas absentee voters can rank their choice. In case the voter ranks a candidate #1, but that candidate withdraws from the race for the nomination by March 1, then that voter’s number two choice will be counted instead of the number one choice. The bills are HB 115 in Vermont, and HD 2394 in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts bill so far is just a draft. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
On March 4, the Oklahoma House Elections & Ethics Committee will hear HB 2181, which lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 5% of the last vote cast, to 1%. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.
On February 3, the West Virginia Senate passed SB 249 by a vote of 25-8. The bill abolishes the straight-ticket device. All the Republicans who voted, voted in favor of the bill. About half the Democrats voted for the bill and half voted against it. All eight “no” votes were Democrats.
The West Virginia Senate is closely divided between the two major parties, but the House is strongly Republican. The bill therefore seems very likely to pass the House.
The California Secretary of State has determined that Americans Elect is no longer a qualified party in California. This is because it neither has enough registrations to qualify, nor did it poll 2% for any statewide race in the June 2014 primary. It did have a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Alan Reynolds, on the June 2014 ballot, but he polled 1.34%. UPDATE: here is the wording of the Secretary of State’s letter.
