On May 17, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell signed SB 31, which provides explicitly that write-in votes can be valid even when the voter didn’t spell the candidate’s name correctly.
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On March 6, 2011, Estonia held a parliamentary election in which voters were free to vote on the internet. The Helsinki Accords organization, ODIHR, has just issued a report on that election. See this blog post at Election Updates. The post contains a link to the full report.
On May 17, California held an election to fill the vacant seat in the 36th U.S. House district. All candidates appeared on a single ballot and all voters received that ballot. The ballot listed sixteen candidates: 6 Republicans, 5 Democrats, 3 independents, one Libertarian, and one Peace & Freedom Party candidate.
UPDATED May 19 with final unofficial results — for the five Democrats: Hahn 24.62%, Bowen 21.05%, Winograd 9.30%, Adler .56%, Goodwin .50%. For the six Republicans: Huey 22.24%, Gin 7.86%, Webb 6.14%, Bobko 3.61%, Eisele 1.23%, Newberry .36%. The Libertarian, Steve Collett, received 1.41%. The Peace & Freedom Party candidate, Maria Montano, received .51%.
The three independents placed at the bottom: Matthew Roozee .25%, Katherine Pilot .20%, Michael Chamness .17%. This result tends to support the arguments made in the pending lawsuits Field v Bowen and Chamness v Bowen. Those two cases, one in state court and one in U.S. District Court, argue that independent candidates, and members of unqualified parties, are injured by being forced to have “no party preference” on the ballot next to their names. The term suggests that they have no political convictions.
Before Proposition 14 was in effect, independent candidates, and members of unqualified parties, were permitted to have the word “independent” on the ballot next to their names. “Independent” is a much more appealing label. The last time “independent” was on the ballot in a California special election was in 2010, when the independent candidate for State Senate, 15th district, Jim Fitzgerald, received 5.89% in the first round and 4.99% in the second round. Also in the November 2010 regularly-scheduled election, California had three U.S. House candidates with the “independent” label. They received 7.7% in the 47th district, 8.4% in the 37th district, and 2.9% in the 23rd district.
The next round in the 36th district special election will be on July 12.
Americans Elect, which is trying to qualify as a party in California using the 10% (of the last gubernatorial vote) petition method, now has over 500,000 signatures. This already sets a new record for the largest number of signatures ever collected in one state to place a new party on the ballot. The previous highs had been set by the American Independent Party in Ohio in 1968, which collected 451,000 signatures; and the Independent Progressive Party in California in 1947-1948, which collected 464,000.
Until 2009, every court that had ever heard a case on whether an unqualified party could list a stand-in vice-presidential candidate, or a stand-in presidential candidate, on its ballot access petition, had always approved the idea. Because some states require petitions to put a new party on the ballot to list their nominees, and because these petitions sometimes must be circulated before the party chooses its presidential and vice-presidential candidates, listing a stand-in is the only practical solution for minor parties that wish to choose their national tickets in the late spring or summer of election years.
Unfortunately, in 2009, a U.S. District Court Magistrate in New Hampshire ruled that states can block stand-ins, and in 2010 the First Circuit also ruled against stand-ins, in cases from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Both lawsuits had been filed by the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party is in the process of asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the First Circuit opinions. George Phillies is generously funding half the printing costs for the cert petition involving the Massachusetts case.