Portland, Maine’s daily newspaper, the Press-Herald, has this editorial about Instant Runoff Voting, which the city used for the first time this past week.
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Western Illinois University, in McComb, Illinois, since 2007, has held “the nation’s largest mock election” for President. A year before the actual election, students mimic the role of primary voters, caucus attendees, and hold mock presidential nomination procedures. Then there is a mock campaign, and a mock general election. See this story.
This year, the process started on October 25. The mock primary/caucus process produced three tickets: Democrats nominated Barack Obama for President and Hillary Clinton for Vice-President; Republicans nominated Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan; Greens nominated Jill Stein and Kent Mesplay. Then, at the mock general election, the results were 39% for the Democratic ticket, 33% for the Republican ticket, 27% for the Green ticket, and 1% other.
Libertarians were involved but they chose to work for Ron Paul in the mock Republican convention. Jill Stein spoke on campus, and this obviously helped the Green campaign, because no other actual presidential candidates appeared on campus. See this story at Green Party Watch, which has a link to Stein’s speech. Also, see this additional coverage at Jill Stein’s web page.
On November 11, World Net Daily carried this column by Tom Tancredo, explaining why the National Popular Vote Plan idea is beneficial to the United States and beneficial to conservatives. It will be interesting to see if his opinion sways the Constitution Party toward support for the plan. As most readers will remember, Tancredo was the Constitution Party’s gubernatorial nominee in Colorado in 2010, as well as a former Republican U.S. House member.
The Coalition for Free & Open Elections is attempting to raise funds so that the Vermont ballot access appeal Trudell v Markowitz can go forward. The case challenges the Vermont independent candidate petition deadline. In 2009 the legislature moved it from September to June, a drastic de-liberalization. An independent candidate, Jerry Trudell, who had been on the ballot for U.S. House in 2008 and had polled 10,818 votes, was unable to get on the ballot in 2010 for another attempt because of the new early deadline.
His lawsuit in lower state court lost earlier this year, and he wants to appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court. However, even though his attorney is pro bono, there are costs of approximately $2,500 to pay for the trial transcript. COFOE does not have that much money, but if COFOE receives pledges of as much as $2,000, it can meet this expense. If you are willing to make a conditional pledge for this cause, please e-mail richardwinger@yahoo.com and indicate the amount of your pledge.
The lower court ruling in the Trudell case was flawed. It did not mention any of the six precedents from other states that June petition deadlines are unconstitutionally early. It did not mention the holding in Anderson v Celebrezze, the 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said early petition deadlines for independent presidential candidates are unconstitutional. Instead, it quoted dicta from Storer v Brown that candidates do not have a constitutional right to enter a race late. The Vermont lower state court said Storer v Brown was decided in 1987, when actually it was decided in 1974, before Anderson v Celebrezze was decided.
COFOE greatly appreciates the generous support it has already received over the years, particularly from one individual who recently donated $200, and another individual who donated $100. But, more is needed. If you wish to contribute to COFOE now, without waiting for the results of the drive for pledges, write a check to COFOE and send it to PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147.
Professor Rick Hasen, a prominent professor of law, a specialist in election law, and a California Democrat, has published this criticism of Americans Elect at Politico. His three main points are: (1) Americans Elect says its voters will choose a presidential nominee on the internet, but that has two drawbacks: (a) the technology is not reliable; (b) not all U.S. voters have access, or are accustomed to using, the internet; (2) Americans Elect won’t divulge the names of many of the people who are paying for the party’s ballot access petitions and its other expenses; (3) Americans Elect “has put rules in place to give an unelected committee within the group the right to veto a ticket that is not ‘balanced’.”
Political science professor Darry A. Sragow, also a California Democrat, has written this response to the Politico editor, disputing Hasen’s points. However, he does not attempt a detailed rebuttal, because Politico wouldn’t let him post his own full op-ed, and limited him to a short letter.
Hasen has a link to Americans Elect’s bylaws, which is fair of him, and which demonstrates good journalism. However, Hasen’s criticism of Americans Elect on point (3) gives the impression that Americans Elect’s leaders can override the choice of the voters in the Americans Elect presidential primary. Americans Elect bylaw 8.0 is titled “Balanced Ticket Obligation.” It says that if the winner of the Americans Elect presidential primary is a Republican, and he or she chooses a Democratic vice-presidential running mate, then that ticket is “deemed to be balanced.” For example, if Ron Paul won the Americans Elect presidential primary, and Paul chose a Democratic running mate, then no officers of Americans Elect may squelch that choice. But if Ron Paul won the Americans Elect primary and he chose an independent or a member of a minor party, then Americans Elect officers would have the authority to rule the ticket “unbalanced.”
One of the goals of the founders of Americans Elect is to elect a President and Vice-President who can work with both major parties. Americans Elect feels one way to realize that goal is to insist that the nominees be of different major parties. Americans Elect didn’t want to exclude an independent or minor party member from receiving its nomination, but because an independent candidate may have any particular ideology, Americans Elect leaders wrote Bylaw 8.0 as a device to safeguard its goal of a diverse ticket. It is not fair to use the existence of Bylaw 8.0 to then generalize that Americans Elect leaders can in general override the choice of the voters in the presidential primary. If the voters in the primary choose Ron Paul for President and Dennis Kucinich becomes his running mate, this ticket probably would not make the founders of Americans Elect happy, but they could do nothing to veto that choice.