According to this article, leaders of the New York legislature have expressed opposition to changing the September primary date for non-federal primary elections. Yet the New York City Board of Elections says a September primary for Mayor this year will cause great problems, because there isn’t enough time for a September primary and then a run-off primary.

According to Michael Drucker’s The Independent View, the State Board of Elections is now thinking seriously about using Instant-Runoff Voting for New York city mayoral primaries. The law requires a run-off primary if no one gets at least 40% of the vote in the primary itself.

Seven New York Assemblymenbers have introduced A1464, which deletes the requirement that a petition circulator must live in the district of the candidate whose petition is being circulated. This residency requirement for candidates (for both primary petitions and general election petitions) has already been held unconstitutional, so the bill, if passed, would merely update the election code so that it follows existing policy.

Massachusetts holds a special U.S. Senate election in June, to fill the seat left empty when U.S. Senator John Kerry resigned to become Secretary of State. Daniel Fishman, a Libertarian who ran for U.S. House in 2012, plans to get on the ballot. He will need 10,000 signatures.

Fishman is an active campaigner. In 2012, he polled 16,739 votes in the Sixth U.S. House district, in the only close U.S. House race in Massachusetts. The Democrat, John F. Tierney, was re-elected with 180,942 votes; the Republican, Richard Tisei, polled 176,612. Here is Fishman’s campaign web page. Thanks to Carla Howell for this news.