Port Chester, New York, is using cumulative voting for the first time this year, for Village Trustee. Six at-large seats are to be filled. Voters are free to assign their six votes any way they please. They can give multiple votes to a single candidate if they wish. See this story. Thanks to Third Party and Independent Daily for the link.
The May 12 issue of the Washington Post has this op-ed by Katrina vanden Heuvel, advocating that Congress pass public funding for congressional candidates. The bills are HR1826 and S752.
HR1826 has not gained any co-sponsors this month so far. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Connecticut Republicans who had filed a lawsuit to keep Susan Bysiewicz off the ballot as a candidate for Attorney General say they will appeal last week’s ruling that said she is eligible. See this story.
A Connecticut statute says no one may run for Attorney General who has not engaged in the “active practice” of law for the past ten years. Bysiewicz is the state’s Secretary of State. She is an attorney.
POLITICO has this exclusive story, predicting that the Republican National Committee is about to name Tampa as the site for the party’s 2012 national convention. The only major party national conventions that have ever before been held in Florida were in Miami Beach. Democrats met there in 1972, and Republicans met there in 1968 and 1972.
Last week, it was reported that no one would be on the ballot in either major party primary in Georgia’s state house district 82. This is because no one had filed in the Republican primary, and filing has closed; and no Democrat would be on because the incumbent Democrat had been the only person who had filed, and then after filing had closed, he withdrew.
But now the Secretary of State has ruled that Democrats will have a special primary on July 20 to choose a replacement. Filing is now open to run in that special primary. Republicans will not be allowed to have a special primary, however. See this story. Thanks to Jason Pye for the link. The regularly-scheduled primary in Georgia this year is also on July 20.
