On December 20, North Carolina State Board of Elections finished its recount in the State Appeals Court race from last month. See this story. The election made history by being the first election in the United States for a statewide office, in a general election, to use Instant Runoff Voting.
Nate Silver’s 538 blog has posted the 2010 population of some U.S. House districts, those with the largest population in the nation, and those with the smallest. The two most populous districts are Nevada’s 3rd, with 1,002,482 residents; and Utah’s 3rd, with 989,325. The least populous districts are Louisiana’s 2nd, with 511,490; and Rhode Island’s First, with 516,796. See here.
The U.S. Supreme Court conference of Friday, January 14, will consider whether to hear Coffield v Kemp, 10-596. This is the case that challenges Georgia’s rules for non-Democratic, non-Republican candidates to get on the ballot for U.S. House of Representatives in regularly-scheduled elections. They are so restrictive, they have not been used since 1964. Back in 1964, the petition deadline was in October, no notarization of signatures was required, and the petitions were not checked for validity. Since the current rules have existed, as revised in 1964, they have never been used for U.S. House candidates.
Every other state has had minor party or independent candidates on the ballot for U.S. House during the last decade.
California’s new Citizens Redistricting Commission is about to start work, now that the Census Bureau has released final 2010 population figures. The Commission has only 14 members. By law, five must be registered Democrats, five must be registered Republicans, and four must be registered “other”. Although all four of the “other” commissioners are now registered independents, two of those four have past associations with a minor party. See this interesting article from Poli-Tea.
The Commission will draw the new boundaries for California’s U.S. House districts, and its state legislative districts.
The Michigan Supreme Court held a conference on December 21. Among other cases, the Court considered whether to take the Socialist Party’s ballot access case. The Court has not yet said whether it will hear the case. It challenges the aspect of Michigan election law that requires newly-qualifying parties to show twice as much support as previously qualified parties. The number of signatures to get a party on the ballot is approximately twice as high as the vote test for an old party to remain on. The case is Socialist Party of Michigan v Land, 142163.
