On November 17, a Michigan House committee will hold a hearing on HB 5974. Introduced by Representative Pete Lund (R-Macomb County), it says the winner of the popular vote for president in Michigan will get nine electoral votes, and then for every 1.5% above 50%, he or she will get another electoral vote. The proposal seems designed to give both major party presidential candidates some electoral votes, but no one else. Here is a link to the bill. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
Washington state started using the top-two system in 2008, but only this year was there any U.S. House race in that state between two members of the same party. In this year’s election, the 4th district incumbent, Doc Rogers, retired, and two Republicans who wanted to replace him placed first and second in the August 2014 primary. The only two candidates in November were Dan Newhouse and Clint Didier. The 4th district is centered on Yakima and Kennewick.
Although Washington election officials are still counting ballots, as of the evening of November 13 the state was reporting 1,974,940 votes (not counting write-in votes) in the ten U.S. House districts combined. In 2012, the vote for U.S. House in the same ten districts had been 3,006,266.
Proponents of the top-two system frequently say that general election races between two members of the same party are better for general election voters, because most districts are safe for one major party or the other, but at least when there are two candidates from the same party, the race has the potential to be unpredictable and exciting.
However, the total vote cast in the Fourth District this year for U.S. House dropped by 35.5%. For all ten races in the state combined, it dropped by a smaller amount, 34.3%. Although political junkies may enjoy congressional races in which only one party has candidates, it seems the voting public as a whole is slightly less interested in voting in such an election as in a normal election.
On November 13, the Oklahoma State Election Board said it will not hold a special election for U.S. House, 2nd district, even though the Democratic nominee died before the election, and even though state law says if a ballot-listed candidate dies before an election but after the ballots have been printed, a special election must be held.
The Secretary of the Board said the Oklahoma state law violates federal law, as applied to congressional elections. It is true that federal law tells the states to hold elections for Congress in November of even-numbered years. But the Eleventh Circuit ruled in 1993 in Public Citizen v Miller, 992 F 2d 1548, that the federal law does not prevent states from holding run-off congressional elections afterwards, if the state requires that the winner receive a majority. Louisiana also holds run-off congressional elections. If Georgia and Louisiana are free to follow a policy that means the final election is not in November, then it follows logically that the Oklahoma law is not invalid either. See this story about the Board’s decision.
Between March and October 2014, Libertarian voter registration rose 8.3%. Voter registration as a whole rose 1.4% during the same period. Independent and miscellaneous rose 2.7%. Democratic registration rose .7%. Republican registration rose 1.0%. Green Party registration rose 2.1%.
The Constitution Party new total is still not known, because the Pennsylvania figure is still unavailable.
All data above only refers to states that have registration by party. The December 1, 2014 printed Ballot Access News will have a chart showing the vote by party, for each state.
The Daily Oklahoman, newspaper of Oklahoma City, has this editorial. The editorial notes Oklahoma’s low turnout last week, and says the silver lining is that it will now be somewhat easier for initiatives and new parties to get on the ballot.
The new party petition for 2014 was 66,744 signatures, but the 2016 requirement will be 41,242.
The independent presidential petition is not affected by the gubernatorial vote. For 2012 it was 43,890, and for 2016, it will be 40,047. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for the link.
