On December 26, Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie chose Lieutenant Governor Brian Schatz to fill the vacancy in the U.S. Senate. The vacancy exists because Senator Daniel Inouye died last week. Inouye had asked the Governor to appoint Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa to his seat, but the Governor did not do that. Because Hanabusa was not appointed, there is no vacancy in the U.S. House from Hawaii.
On December 26, the Pew Research Center released this report about voting in November 2012. The Center believes it is likely, although not certain, that black voter turnout was higher than white voter turnout. The data refers to the percentages of all adult eligible citizens who participated in the election. Blacks are 12% of the adult population but 13% of the votes were cast by blacks.
At the November 6 election, voters in the 31st U.S. House district cast 207,095 votes for President. But those same voters only cast 161,219 votes for U.S. House, which means that 22.2% of the voters in that district chose to abstain from voting for U.S. House. This is undoubtedly because the ballot only listed two Republicans for U.S. House, and did not permit write-ins. So, many voters in that district disliked both candidates, and therefore abstained.
There are always some voters who cast a vote for President and then fail to vote for U.S. House. For example, in 2008, in California, 8.6% of the voters who voted for President did not vote for U.S. House. Obviously, though, there is a significant difference between 22.2% and 8.6%.
The vote in November 2012 for President inside the 31st district was: Obama 118,043; Romney 83,822; Johnson 2,027; Barr 822; Stein 807; Hoefling 721; various write-ins for President 853. The vote for U.S. House for the two Republicans was: Gary Miller 88,964; Bob Dutton 72,255. The 31st district is entirely in San Bernardino County.
On December 14, Gary Johnson dismissed his lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates. The case, which had been filed on October 18, 2012, just prior to the last major party presidential debate (held October 22), had alleged that Johnson satisfied the criteria for inclusion. The rules say that three polls must show that the candidate is at 15% or higher. Johnson submitted three polls, in which respondents were only asked if they preferred President Obama or Gary Johnson, and in all three polls, Johnson scored far higher than 15%.
Because the case had been filed so late, relative to the debate itself, no ruling was ever made in this case. Now that the election is over, Johnson and his attorneys saw no further need for the lawsuit.
It will be interesting to see if the Commission on Presidential Debates revises its rules before the 2016 election, to set forth rules on how many presidential candidates, and which candidates, must be included in the various polls that determine eligibility. It is conceivable that new rules would at least encourage pollsters to be more attentive to including all presidential candidates who are on the ballot in states containing enough electoral votes to be elected. Many leading polls do not bother to include anyone except the two major party presidential candidates.
On May 25, 2012, a U.S. District Court struck down Montana’s March petition deadline for independent candidates (other than presidential independents) to get on the ballot. The state did not appeal.
The deadline for Montana legislators to submit bill ideas to the bill-drafting office has now passed, and no legislator has introduced a bill to replace the old, void deadline. However, Montana legislators are permitted to introduce two bills beyond this deadline, so it is still possible a bill on this subject will be introduced in 2013.
