At the November 5, 2013 election, Constitution Party member Steven W. Johnson was elected to one of the two city council seats in Enoch, Utah. Enoch is in Iron County in southwest Utah and has non-partisan elections. Here are the official election returns. Thanks to Frank Fluckiger for this news.
Colbert King, deputy editor of the Washington Post’s editorial page, has this column, suggesting that 2014 might see the election of an independent candidate for Mayor of Washington, D.C. Thanks to Doug McNeil for the link.
Two political science professors and one law professor have posted a preliminary copy of their article “Sore Loser Laws and Congressional Polarization” on the Social Science Research Network. The Network permits anyone to read the article free of charge, using this link. The authors are Barry C. Burden, Bradley Jones, and Michael S. Kang. The article will eventually be published in Legislative Studies Quarterly.
The article documents the increase of polarization in Congress, discusses various theories that explain the increased polarization, and then makes the case that one ignored cause of polarization is that almost all states now have “sore loser” laws. As the study explains, these laws were almost unheard of a century ago. The article has a chart, giving the year each state passed its sore loser law. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
The San Jose Mercury News has this op-ed, by Rob Richie and Devin McCarthy, advocating that U.S. House elections provide for multi-member districts, combined with Ranked Choice Voting. The most startling fact in the op-ed is that with our current system, the Republicans could keep a majority in the U.S. House even if the Republicans only receive 45% of the two-party vote cast for U.S. House nationwide. The suggested reform would almost certainly mean that the party that receives the most votes nationwide for U.S. House would be the party that organizes the U.S. House.
Ballot Access News
November 1, 2013 – Volume 29, Number 6
| This issue was printed on cream paper. |
Table of Contents
