As previously noted, on November 10, a U.S. District Court struck down Nebraska’s county distribution requirement for statewide initiatives. Here is an editorial from Omaha’s daily newspaper, which seems to approve of the decision, but which also advocates that the legislature require signatures from each of Nebraska’s three U.S. House districts.
This story says the percentage of registered voters who voted in some California congressional and legislative races was only one-fourth of the registered voters. The story quotes several experts who express dismay, but no one quoted in the article mentions the point that perhaps California voters don’t like general election ballots with only two candidates on the ballot. In this month’s election, California voters were the only voters in the nation who were not able to vote for any statewide partisan office unless they voted for a Democrat or a Republican.
On Thanksgiving Day, November 27, U.S. District Court Judge Cindy Jorgenson issued a 15-page ruling denying relief to Democratic Congressman Ron Barber. Barber and some voter plaintiffs had complained that certain provisional ballots had not been counted and should have been counted. See this story. The case is Barber v Bennett, 4:14cv-2489.
The fifteen page decision discusses Bush v Gore and finds that the case is properly in federal court. But it says, “Plaintiff’s allegation of irreparable harm is speculative at this juncture. Even if all 133 votes are counted, it is undisputed that Martha McSally wins the election because she leads by a margin of 161 votes at this time.” Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link to the ruling.
On November 4, the only minor party candidate in the state of New Mexico for any partisan office was Michael E. Lunnon, the Constitution Party nominee for Sheriff of McKinley County. Here is a link to the unofficial election returns from the Secretary of State’s web page. The results are: Democrat Ronald R. Silversmith 9,682; Constitution Party nominee Lunnon 2,163; Republican Clayton E. Garcia 2,146.
Lunnon was probably helped by the fact that New Mexico no longer has a straight-ticket device on the ballot.
McKinley County is in northwest New Mexico. The county seat is Gallup. The county is a stronghold for the Democratic Party.
New Mexico had fewer minor party nominees on the ballot in this month’s election than any other state. Also, during the entire period 2001-2014, New Mexico and North Dakota were tied for having the fewest independent and minor party candidates on the ballot. The November 1, 2014 printed Ballot Access News has a chart which shows this data for each state.
The Libertarian and Independent American Parties were and are on the ballot in New Mexico, but neither of them ran any nominees in 2014. This is mostly because New Mexico forces ballot-qualified minor parties to submit a petition of 1% of the last vote cast for all its nominees. New Mexico is the only state that requires the nominees of any qualified party to submit a petition to appear on the November ballot. The policy lacks logic.
Murray Rankin, the member of Parliament for Victoria, British Columbia, has this op-ed in the Times Colonist, the daily newspaper for Victoria. Rankin argues in favor of proportional representation for Canada. The comments underneath the article are interesting. Many commenters don’t realize that there are systems of proportional representation that do allow voters to choose the particular individual who represents them.
Rankin is a member of the New Democratic Party, which officially supports proportional representation.
