According to this story, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory said he will decide to sign or veto all the pending bills he hasn’t already dealt with during the week of August 11-17. That includes HB 589, the omnibus election law bill.
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The South Dakota Secretary of State has released the August 1 tally of the number of registered voters. The percentages are: Republican 45.77%; Democratic 35.49%; independent 18.44%; Libertarian .23%; Constitution .069%. The number of registered voters in Americans Elect is so tiny, it doesn’t make sense to present it as a percentage, but the party has 6 registered members.
In November 2012, the percentages were: Republican 45.99%; Democratic 35.85%; independent 17.88%; Libertarian .21%; Constitution .066%. Americans Elect back then had 4 registered members.
The new figures for South Dakota are somewhat similar to virtually all 2013 registration data across the nation. The two major parties have declined as a percentage, whereas independents and minor parties have risen. The new numbers are: Republican 244,944; Democratic 189,892; independent 98,683; Libertarian 1,224; Constitution 368; Americans Elect 6. The old numbers were: Republican 243,113; Democratic 189,493; independent 94,536; Libertarian 1,126; Constitution 349; Americans Elect 4.
According to this story, the President of the North Carolina NAACP, William Barber, is hoping to talk to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory to ask him to veto the omnibus election law bill, HB 589. One week has elapsed since the legislature sent the bill to the Governor, and he hasn’t acted yet. He has until August 25 to decide.
On August 4, St. Pete Polls released a Florida 2014 poll, including a poll on the gubernatorial race. The poll assumed that Rick Scott, the incumbent Republican Governor, will be the Republican nominee; it assumed former Governor Charlie Crist will be the Democratic nominee. It also listed Adrian Wyllie, who has been campaigning for the Libertarian gubernatorial nomination. The results: Crist 40.1%; Scott 29.5%; Wyllie 8.7%.
The poll breaks down the percentage for each candidate by age, race, and other demographic categories. Wyllie polls 11% among the voters under age 50, but only 5% among voters age 70 and above.
The poll had 3,034 respondents and included questions about ballot measures that are likely to be on the 2014 ballot, and some particular legislative races.
Gary Stein is an independent candidate for the New Jersey legislature this year, running in the 2nd district in the Atlantic City area. The Press, the daily newspaper for Atlantic City, has this article about New Jersey general election ballot format. New Jersey is the only state that still uses party column ballots and will never provide a party column for parties other than the Democratic and Republican Parties. As the story says, New Jersey defines “party” to be a group that polled at least 10% for all the votes cast for Assembly (lower house of the state legislature), and ever since that law has existed, only the Democratic and Republican Parties have met that definition. The law has existed since 1920.
New Jersey county elections officials are free to design their own ballots, and three counties have fair ballots that don’t use party columns at all. They are Monmouth, Salem, and Sussex Counties. All other counties crowd all the nominees of unqualified parties, and all the independent candidates, into a column headed “Nomination by Petition.” Probably a large proportion of voters never even look at the names in that column, which is always toward the right-hand part of the ballot. Candidate ballot labels are next to the candidates’ names in tiny print.
Stein is suing to overturn that ballot format. The case is Stein v McGettigan, Atlantic Superior Court, ATL L4907-13. It was filed July 15 and a hearing date will probably be set soon.