This San Francisco Bay Guardian article describes the political maneuvering in San Francisco concerning Instant Runoff Voting and a proposed repeal of that system, which was first approved in San Francisco in 2002. Earlier this year, an attempt to repeal IRV was defeated in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Now a new attempt, to repeal it only for the executive offices, is under way.
“Mischiefs of Faction” is a blog about politics and political scientist, run by four political scientists. Here is a blog post about open primaries written by Seth Masket.
June 25 was the petition deadline in Illinois for independent candidates, and nominees of unqualified parties. Six presidential candidates submitted a petition: Stewart Alexander, Socialist; Virgil Goode, Constitution; Gary Johnson, Libertarian; Jill Stein, Green; Rocky Anderson, independent; and Michael W. Hawkins, whose party label is “Together Enhancing America.” Hawkins also submitted a petition for himself as an independent presidential candidate. The Libertarian petition actually carries the name of Rex Green, who is a stand-in for Gary Johnson. Illinois law permits substitution. UPDATE: the first version of this post erroneously did not include Rocky Anderson.
The two petitions that have the largest number of signatures appear to be the Libertarian petition (approximately 48,000) and the Green petition (approximately 30,000). Any petition that is submitted is sufficient, if no one challenges. However, the legal requirement is 25,000. If a petition doesn’t have that many signatures, and is challenged, then of course that petition fails.
Illinois has the third earliest petition deadline (when the later methods for getting on the ballot are compared). Only Vermont and North Carolina are earlier.
On June 25, the Michigan Libertarian Party filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Detroit, seeking an order requiring the Michigan Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, to list Gary Johnson on the ballot as the Libertarian presidential nominee. The case is Libertarian Party of Michigan v Johnson, 2:12-cv-12782-PDB. Here is the 9-page complaint.
The Secretary of State said on May 3 that she would not print Johnson’s name on the November ballot because his name had appeared on the Republican presidential primary ballot in February this year. Johnson had tried to withdraw but the Secretary of State says his withdrawal was received three minutes too late. There are very few precedents for a case like this, because no state has ever before told a ballot-qualified party that it will not list its actual presidential nominee on the grounds that the actual presidential nominee had run in the presidential primary of some other party. The only exception is that North Carolina tried to prevent John B. Anderson from appearing on the November 1980 ballot as the nominee of the Independent Party, on the grounds that his name had been on the 1980 Republican presidential primary in that state. But a U.S. District Court construed the North Carolina law to not be a barrier to Anderson. The state had then dropped any appeal, but the Democratic National Committee had intervened in the case and appealed to the 4th circuit. However, the 4th circuit also construed the North Carolina law to not apply to Anderson.
Presidential candidates who have run in a major party presidential primary, and then later appeared on the general election ballot as the nominee of a new or minor party that same year, besides Anderson, include Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Robert La Follette in 1924, and David Duke in 1988. Anderson appeared on the November ballot of all 50 states in 1980, even though he had run in 22 Republican presidential primaries that year. One of the 22 Republican presidential primaries Anderson had run in was Michigan’s primary, but Michigan did not try to bar him from the November ballot.
In Florida, and many other states, Supreme Court Justices may retain their seat if they win retention elections. Voters are asked if the judge should be retained or not. Apparently, in Florida, Justices must file to be on the ballot. According to this news story, a lawsuit has been filed to remove three Supreme Court Justices from the ballot, on the grounds that their application to be on the ballot was notarized by an employee of the court.
