The Minnesota legislature has two vacancies, and the state plans to fill them this month. But there are several lawsuits challenging aspects of the upcoming elections. Republicans argue that the date of the elections were improperly chosen. Various minor parties and independents may sue over the schedule that requires all 500 signatures be collected in one day. And now a residency challenge has been filed to one of the Democratic candidates. See this story.
Oklahoma residents who favor a top-two system will try to get their initiative on the ballot for 2026. See this story. They contradict established word usage by referring to their initiative as an “open primary”. For fity years, political science textbooks and U.S. Supreme Court opinions have defined an “open primary” to be a system in which parties have their own primary ballots and their own nominees, but any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot.
On January 7, Arkansas Representative Wayne Long (R-Bradford) introduced HB 1078, which says that if no one receives a majority in November in a legislative race, there should be a run-off four weeks after the November election.
It is not known why he introduced the bill. There were no legislative races in 2024 in which anyone elected to the legislature failed to get as much as 50% of the total November vote.
On January 6, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, said that the state needs the statewide initiative process. See this story.
No state has added provision for a statewide initiative since Mississippi did, and since then the initiative has disappeared in Mississippi. There are only 22 states that actually have a statewide initiative process. Illinois has one on paper, but it is so restrictive as to subject matter, it might as well not exist. Illinois has only had one statewide initiative on the process in its entire history.
On December 27, 2024, the Maine Secretary of State posted new registration data. See it here.
Percentages are: Democratic 34.41%; Republican 29.90%; Green 3.61%; No Labels 1.64%; Libertarian .59%; independent and other 29.85%.
The percentages in March 2024 had been: Democratic 35.95%; Republican 29.64%; Green 3.86%; No Labels 1.02%; Libertarian .55%; independent and other 28.98%.
Parties are defined as groups with at least 5,000 registered members. The Libertarian Party total is now 6,085, whereas in March 2024 it had been 5,236.
