The Maine legislature now has two bills to establish Ranked-Choice voting for federal and state office. The first one, LD 518, was introduced in February and hasn’t moved. The new bill, introduced in April, is LD 1422. The lead sponsor is Representative Deane Rykerson (D-Kittery). LD 1422 also covers a completely separate subject, a restoration of Maine’s presidential primary. It appears LD 1422 will soon receive a hearing.

The bill says that for purposes of determining whether a party polled as much as 5% of the vote, only the voters’ First Choice votes count. Whether a party gets 5% of the vote is no longer relevant for determining whether an old party remains on the ballot. But it is still relevant for determining if a newly-qualifying party has indeed gained qualified status. If a group runs a candidate for President or Governor who polls at least 5% of the vote, that creates a new ballot-qualified party, assuming the group can also fulfill various organization requirements, such as holding a town caucus in the spring of the following election year in each county in the state.

North Carolina has a public funding program in place for candidates for judicial offices. According to this news story, the Governor’s budget plans to defund the program, and three bills have been introduced to repeal the program.

This AP story about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to repeal the Wilson-Pakula law has quotations about the idea from leaders of the Conservative Party, the Independence Party, and the Green Party. All favor the existing law and oppose the Governor’s idea.

The title of the article is somewhat misleading. The Wilson-Pakula law was passed in 1947 to curtail the power of U.S. Congressman Vito Marcantonio, who kept winning major party primaries even though he was sympathetic to the views of the Communist Party. The change was not about a generic attempt to stop socialists or communists.