Schenectady, New York, elects its Mayor in partisan elections this year. The primaries are on September 13. A registered independent, Roger Hull, has the Republican Party mayoral nomination, and also the nomination of an unqualified party, the Alliance Party. He hopes to also get the nominations of any of these qualified parties: the Working Families, Conservative, Independence, and Green Parties. His supporters have filed the needed petitions to win the right to run as a write-in candidate in the primaries of those parties. See this story. Thanks to Bill Allen for the link. The only other candidate for Mayor is the Democratic incumbent, Gary McCarthy.

According to this story in the July 31 Christian Science Monitor, Elliot Ackerman, chief operating officer for Americans Elect, recently told the press that the group’s Candidate Certification Committee will “make sure we have candidates who bridge the center of American public opinion.” This is the first indication that Americans Elect will filter candidates for its presidential nomination based on their ideas. Until this comment, Americans Elect had said, or implied, that any person who has the qualifications to be President (based on the history of actual past Presidents, i.e., been a Governor, or member of Congress, or a Cabinet member, or as an important wartime General) is eligible to compete for the nomination. Thanks to Irregular Times for the link. Ackerman’s comment is at the top of page three of the article.

The Center for Voting and Democracy, also known as Fairvote, is a national organization that works for Instant Runoff Voting and proportional representation. It really posted this statement of why it doesn’t also support approval voting.