In the November 2012 election, one Ohio state house district race had disputed election returns. Final figures show that Republican incumbent Al Landis of the 98th district defeated his Democratic opponent, Josh O’Farrell, by eight votes. However, irregularities were charged. The Ohio House will adjudicate the issue. On March 13 a committee was appointed to investigate the details of the vote count problems. See this story, which says the process will take several weeks.
The lawsuit filed by the Alabama Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties in 2012, arguing that the March petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties is unconstitutional, had been set for a trial in the late spring of 2013. However, the state requested that it be postponed until September, and the plaintiffs agreed. It is possible that the state believes the ballot access bill now pending in the legislature will pass, which could moot the lawsuit. The bill lowers the number of signatures and also provides for a later petition deadline.
Los Angeles held a non-partisan mayoral election on March 5, 2013. Eight candidates were on the ballot. No one got as much as 50%, so there is a run-off on May 21. Dante Atkins has this article about the race at Calitics. The run-off is between Eric Garcetti, a current city councilmember, and Wendy Grueuel, the city controller. Probably most observers agree that the biggest issue in the election is what to do about city employee pensions.
Garcetti describes how Grueuel originally took a position on city pensions that was more favorable to city workers than the position of Garcetti. Therefore, the union that represents city workers endorsed Grueuel. Now, however, Grueuel has changed her position on the pension issue, for what appear to be opportunistic reasons. This tendency for candidates to reverse themselves on key issues is not solely a characteristic of non-partisan elections. It happens in partisan elections as well. Nevertheless, in a partisan election, a candidate is somewhat constrained to follow his or her own party’s platform. In the absence parties, there are no party platforms with any relevance in the race, and the opportunities for candidates to appear to have absolutely no fixed stands on issues are greater.
Another characteristic of this year’s Los Angeles election is the low turnout. At the March 5 election, only 292,760 ballots were cast, even though at the time Los Angeles had 1,817,107 registered voters. Partisanship, for all its flaws, does tend to stimulate better turnout. Most observers believe the May 21 run-off turnout will be equally bad.
Blue Collar Muse, a conservative-leaning political blog in Tennessee, has this column in favor of the pending ballot access bills. They lower the number of signatures from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1,000 signatures. The column is by Daniel Lewis of the Tennessee Libertarian Party.
On March 23, the Chicago Tribune carried this comprehensive investigative report on Illinois ballot access procedures, especially for local office.
