Missouri holds local elections on April 2. According to this article, some jurisdictions in Missouri will ask voters to sign in on i-pads instead of old-fashioned poll books. Thanks to Ken Bush for the link.
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POLITICO has this story, revealing that more states every year are making it possible for individuals to register to vote on-line, or at least to update their voter registration information, such as address or change of name.
On April 1, Steve Wailand sued the City of Macomb, Illinois, because the city refuses to acknowledge that he won the February 26 election for Alderman, 2nd district. There were only two candidates: Wailand, who got 17 votes, and incumbent Kay Hill, who got 16 votes. The city election rules say that candidates who get a majority in the February election are elected, but if no one got a majority, there is a run-off on April 9.
The city says Wailand didn’t get enough votes to have a true majority. Even though he got 51.51%, the city says “majority” really means one vote more than 50%. However, this policy is not written down anywhere. The case is Wailand v City of Macomb, 9th judicial district, 13MR46. See this story. Here is some commentary about the situation by Ed Woell, who teaches history at Western Illinois University.
Macomb has a population of 22,086, and is in west central Illinois. It has seven wards, and two more aldermen are elected at-large. As it obvious from the vote totals, the turnout was extremely low (3%). Thanks to Phil Huckelberry for the link to the news story.
Michigan holds a special election to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 27th district, on May 7. Four parties entered the race. The nominees are: Democratic Jim Ananich; Republican Robert Daunt; Green Bobby Jones; Libertarian Robert Nicholls. The district is centered on Flint. Last time this race was up, in November 2010, the Democratic Party nominee had defeated the Republican and Libertarian nominees. Thanks to Michael for this news. UPDATE: the original post has been amended to include Nicholls. Thanks to the anonymous commenter who caught the error.
The Knoxville News Sentinel has this editorial, asking the Tennessee legislature not to pass SB 471, the bill to let legislators from each major party choose their party’s U.S. Senate nominees. The editorial says the Senate will vote on the bill on Monday, April 1.