The Iowa Republican Party has confirmed an earlier tentative decision, and will hold its presidential caucuses on January 3, which is a Tuesday. Iowa caucuses are always held in on Tuesday evenings. See this story. The story also says that it is possible New Hampshire won’t set its presidential primary date until October 28. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
Political Science Professor Mathew Manweller has published an article in the Election Law Journal on voter confusion in Washington state’s top-two system, “The Very Partisan Nonpartisan Top-Two Primary: Understanding What Voters Don’t Understand.” The article is based on Manweller’s experimental findings, giving voters three Washington state ballots and asking them for their understanding of the relationship between candidates and their own political parties. The experiment involved 183 new voters, 102 ordinary voters, and 549 politically active voters.
His experiment showed that a large proportion of voters are confused about the relationship between parties and candidates. Washington’s top-two system would be unconstitutional if voters believe that party labels on the ballot means anything other than that candidate’s statement about his or her own political leanings. Therefore, Manweller’s findings are relevant to whether the top-two system survives court scrutiny. Manweller’s article has been submitted to the Ninth Circuit, which is currently considering the constitutionality of the system. Because the article is now in the public record, and because the Washington Secretary of State’s web page links to the article, it can be seen by anyone, notwithstanding that normally Election Law Journal articles are copywrited. Here is the article. Thanks to Thomas Jones for noticing the link, and thanks to the Washington Secretary of State for posting it.
According to this story, Americans Elect starts collecting signatures in Wyoming this week. Other parties that are circulating in Wyoming are the Constitution Party and the Country Party. The Constitution Party is virtually finished.
On October 17, the Missouri Senate convened and considered many amendments to two bills that would have altered the February 7, 2012 presidential primary. In the end, the Senate defeated all the proposed amendments and didn’t pass any bill on this subject. Frontloading HQ has the details here.
Although the February 7 presidential primary will now be held, it will not choose delegates to the Republican national convention. The Missouri Republican Party will use caucuses in March instead. Retaining the February 7 presidential primary will enable the state’s two ballot-qualified minor parties, the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party, to have their own presidential primaries. UPDATE: here is a newspaper story on the retention of the primary.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court currently has a Libertarian Party lawsuit over whether the state law allows presidential stand-in candidates on petitions. The party had filed the case on August 12, 2011. The state had originally expected to respond by October 17, but it has asked for another week to respond. The case is Libertarian Association of Massachusetts v Galvin, sj 2011-0348.
The Libertarian Party is hoping that the State Supreme Judicial Court will construe the existing law to mean that stand-ins are permitted for President. The law is ambiguous, but clearly allows stand-ins for other partisan office.
