Colorado Legislative Hearing Set for Approval Voting Bill

Posted on by March 6, 2014
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The Colorado House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee will hear HB 1062 on Wednesday, March 12. This is a bill to let local governments use Approval Voting for non-partisan elections. Approval Voting lets voters cast one vote for each candidate they favor, even though only one person is being elected to fill the office. For instance, if Approval Voting existed for President, a voter in 2000 could have voted for both Al Gore and Ralph Nader. Thanks to Frank Atwood for this news.

Utah Legislature Passes Bill Altering Party Nominations Process

Posted on by March 5, 2014
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On March 5, the Utah legislature passed SB 54. It changes the existing system by which parties nominate candidates. Current law does not permit anyone to run for a party nomination unless he or she does well at a pre-primary convention. But under the bill, anyone could petition onto the primary ballot, regardless of what happened at the party convention, although the petitions would be quite difficult. Statewide candidates would need approximately 28,000 signatures.

The bill also requires parties to let independent voters vote in their primaries, and lets any voter sign a petition to place a candidate on a party primary ballot. It also requires parties to let members cast a convention vote even if the member is not physically present at the convention. See this story.

Former South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Says Independent Candidate for US Senate Likely if Lindsey Graham Loses Republican Primary

Posted on by March 5, 2014
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According to this article, Dick Harpootlian, a South Carolina attorney and former state chair of the Democratic Party, predicts that if U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham loses the June Republican primary for re-election, there will be a strong independent candidate for U.S. Senate.

Kesha Rogers, Candidate of the LaRouche Organization, Qualifies for Texas Democratic Run-off for U.S. Senate

Posted on by March 5, 2014
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Texas held the nation’s first primary on March 4. In the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, Kesha Rogers placed second. Because no one got as much as 50%, a run-off primary will be held on May 27.

Rogers is the candidate backed by Lyndon LaRouche’s organization. See this story about her, written before the results were known. The preliminary Democratic primary results for U.S. Senate are: David Alameel 47.06%, Rogers 21.72%, Maxey Marie Scherr 17.69%, Harry Kim 8.93%, Michael Fjetland 4.57%.

The Texas primary for both major parties had low turnout. Texas had 13,445,285 registered voters as of November 2013. Although not all the 2014 primary returns have been counted, so far the total vote cast for Governor in the Republican primary is 1,333,010, and the total vote cast for Governor in the Democratic primary is 546,480. By contrast, in 2010, there were 1,484,542 votes in the Republican gubernatorial primary and 680,548 in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

The low turnout is good news for the 1787 Party, which hopes to petition for a place on the November ballot. Voters who voted in the primary cannot sign for a new party or an independent candidate. Texas is the only state which doesn’t let voters sign for an independent or a new party if the voter voted in the primary.