On May 23, the Maine House passed LD 142. Current law says each qualified party must hold at least one town caucus, each spring of even-numbered years, in every county. The bill relaxes the requirement somewhat, and says a party must hold at least one town caucus in at least 14 of the state’s 16 counties. The Green Independent Party, the only ballot-qualified party besides the Democratic and Republican Parties, had requested this bill.
This newspaper story describes the advantages of electronic poll books and scanners at the polling place. Sioux Falls, South Dakota’s School District will soon hold an election in which a voter within the district can vote at any of the ten voting locations, rather than just one particular location. Officials at that voting location scan the voter’s driver’s license or state ID card. Also, the voter signs in with an electronic signature. This system prevents anyone from voting with the same ID card more than once.
Trudell v Condos will have a trial on July 14-15 in Vermont state court. This is the case that challenges the June petition deadline for independent candidates. See this story.
The state had tried to avoid this trial, arguing that the case should be dismissed summarily, but the Superior Court Judge in Washington County already denied the state’s motion for summary judgment.
On May 23, a Nevada state court in Carson City issued this 12-page decision in Nevada Republican Party v State, 11-oc-00147. This is the lawsuit over how to interpret Nevada’s law governing special elections for U.S. House. Last week the court had ruled orally that parties may nominate by convention or party meeting. The Secretary of State had earlier ruled that parties may not nominate candidates in special elections for this office, and that any individual may run. The Republican Party had then sued to overturn that ruling, because there is no run-off and the Republican Party was afraid there would be multiple Republicans running and perhaps only a single Democrat.
The Secretary of State, and the Democratic Party, had already announced an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court even before this written opinion was issued. The written opinion points out that under the Secretary of State’s ruling, the Democratic and Republican Parties would have no ability to nominate candidates, but the state’s two qualified minor parties would have an ability to designate only one person to use that party’s label.
“Green Horizon”, a semi-annual publication of the Green Horizon Foundation, has recently released its Spring/Summer 2011 issue. It contains several articles that would be of interest to readers of this blog. Fred Horch has a 3-page article about his campaign for the Maine legislature in 2010. Horch, the Green Party nominee, placed ahead of the Republican nominee and came within 200 votes of winning. He describes his campaign methods. The issue also includes a two-page article by Linda Piera-Avila about her campaign in 2010 as a Green Party nominee for the California legislature, and the very different campaign techniques she used running in a district that was hundreds of times more populous than a Maine district.
Also, the issue includes a provocative two-page article by Brent McMillan titled, “Is Leadership a Dirty Word in the U.S. Green Party?” McMillan is a former executive director of the Green Party of the United States. And, the issue has a two-page article by Rob Richie, director of FairVote, which works to expand the use of proportional representation and instant runoff voting. Richie details news from California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Anyone can get a free issue by e-mailing John Rensenbrink at john@rensenbrink.com and supplying a postal address. The latest issue is 31 pages.
