On May 22, Hawaii held a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 1st district. Hawaii special elections do not allow parties to nominate candidates. Instead, anyone runs on a single ballot by collecting 25 valid signatures. Five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independents, ran. The leading Republican, Charles Djou, was elected with 39.4% of the vote. There is no provision for a run-off. See the returns here.

The voters cast 59% of their votes for one or another Democrat, but the Democratic vote was splintered. Democrats might have worked harder to narrow the field of Democrats, but they presume that they will regain this seat in November 2010 anyway, and the balance in the House right now is not terribly close. If this had been a Senate race, the Democratic Party would have acted differently.

This is the first time a Republican has been elected to Congress from Hawaii in many decades.

The Monterey Herald of May 23 has this somewhat ambivalent endorsement of California’s Proposition 14, the top-two ballot measure on the June 8 ballot. The Herald discusses some of the problems with Proposition 14, but ends by saying it still endorsed the measure because the California League of Women Voters supports it. However, the California League of Women Voters does not support Proposition 14. The League is officially neutral. However, the League’s web page discussion of Proposition 14 notes that if both Proposition 14 and Proposition 15 are enacted, Proposition 15 cannot be enacted with further legislation, court action, or another vote of the people, because the two don’t fit together. Proposition 15 is public funding. The California League, and the Monterey County Herald, both support Proposition 15.

UPDATE: editorial page editor Joseph Livernois says he is aware of the mistake and that the paper will correct it. I have e-mailed him urging him to read the political science research of Boris Shor, which says that polarization is not cured by blanket or top-two primaries. I am urging him to come out against Prop. 14.

The California League of Women Voters is neutral on Proposition 14 because the California League has never studied primary systems. However, the Washington state League has studied primary systems, and the Washington State League wrote the ballot pamphlet argument against Washington state’s top-two measure, I-872 in November 2004.

The only statewide California ballot propositions on which the League has a position are Propositions 15 and 16. See here.

Congress has many interesting election law bills, but during the last two weeks, only one of them gained any co-sponsors. HB 1826, for public funding of congressional candidates, did gain two co-sponsors during mid-May, and now has 151.

Bills that didn’t gain any co-sponsors in the last two weeks include HR 3335, to let ex-felons register to vote for federal elections; HB 4918, to provide for transparency when state legislature redistrict U.S. House boundaries; HR 3957, for same-day voter registration in federal elections; HR 2894, on vote-counting equipment; and HR 3025, to require states to use bipartisan bodies to redraw U.S. House boundaries.

The most dramatic election law-related change that might pass this year is HR 2499, to provide for a vote on Puerto Rico’s status. See this interesting column by John Fund in the Wall Street Journal of May 13. HR 2499 already passed the House but there seems little news on what the U.S. Senate will do.