New York State Board of Elections had hoped to have the state’s final election returns available on December 27. However, a large snow storm in upstate New York has caused difficulties, and now the returns aren’t expected until next week.
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Fairvote recently published this study of statewide recounts. No statewide recounts were held in 2012. During the period 2000-2012, 99.5% of the time a statewide election was held, no recount occurred. The study includes ballot measures as well as candidate elections.
On December 17, the Illinois Green Party, and its nominee for U.S. House, 2nd district, in the upcoming April 2013 special election, filed a lawsuit against the ballot access requirements for non-qualified parties and independent candidates.
The bill, setting the date for the special election, was signed on December 3, 2012, so theoretically the Green Party was free on the following day to start collecting signatures. The law demands 15,682 valid signatures by February 4. The signatures are due even before the special primary (the Green Party, of course, would not be involved with the primary; the primary is only for Republicans and Democrats).
The Green Party did nominate a candidate on December 4. He is LeAlan Jones. He had been the Green Party nominee for U.S. Senate in November 2010, and had polled 3.65% in the special U.S. Senate election, 129,571 votes. In the regular 2010 U.S. Senate election he had polled 3.18%, or 117,914 votes.
The Fourth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits have previously ruled that when the normal length of time for petitioning is not available, states must either reduce the number of signatures proportionate to the amount of time lost, or else extend the deadline. The normal petitioning period in Illinois is 90 days, but in this special election, only 62 days are allowed, so at a minimum the state ought to either shrink the petition requirement to approximately two-thirds of what it would be otherwise, or else extend the deadline. There is no practical reason why the signatures are due before the primary. The new lawsuit is Jones v McGuffage, northern district, 12-cv-9997.
On December 21, independent candidate Marcus Lewis filed papers, seeking to intervene in the case on the side of the Green Party. Lewis was on the ballot as an independent for the 2nd district race in November 2012. He polled 13.44% of the vote (he had needed 5,000 signatures to get on the ballot for that election). He wants to run in the upcoming special election. Ironically, if he had formed a new party for the November 2012 election, instead of running as an independent candidate, he would now have an extremely easy route on to the special election ballot in April; his 13.44% share of the vote would have created a new ballot-qualified party just in the 2nd district.
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.