On January 13, U.S. House member Kevin McCarthy (R-California) and Gregg Harper (R-Mississippi) introduced HB 4449. It provides financial assistance to states that set up procedures by which people can register to vote on-line. It provides that states, in order to receive this financial assistance, must set up their system so that only individuals who already have state ID may use the on-line system.
Several blogs that cover politics and election law have linked to this New York Times story about Joseph Kennedy, the Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate in the January 19, 2010 special election in Massachusetts.
In my memory, the New York Times has never before devoted so much space to any Libertarian candidate for either house of Congress, in the entire history of the Libertarian Party. Libertarian Party candidates for U.S. Senate have held the balance of power in U.S. Senate elections in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2006, and 2008, but one would never know this from reading the New York Times, which generally never mentions Libertarian Party candidates for office other than President.
These prior Libertarian U.S. Senate candidates were: in 1998, Michael Cloud in Nevada; in 2000, Jeff Jared in Washington; in 2002, Kurt Evans in South Dakota; in 2006, Stan Jones in Montana; and in 2008, Charles Aldrich in Minnesota (the 2008 instance also featured an even larger effect by an Independence Party nominee).
See this story, which describes the Portland, Maine Charter Commission’s interest in Instant Runoff Voting. Although IRV has been discussed in Vermont ever since the late 1990’s, there has yet been little attention to IRV in Maine. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for the link.
The Alabama House Constitution and Elections Committee hears HB 145 on January 14. It provides that any write-in candidate who wants his or her write-ins tallied must file a declaration of write-in candidacy. A similar bill introduced in both houses of the legislature in 2009 failed to pass. Alabama is one of the few states that permits write-ins in general elections and yet does not require write-in candidates to file a write-in declaration of candidacy. As a result, the state won’t tally the votes for any write-in candidates, even though most counties do so.
In 2008, the Alabama Secretary of State put the write-ins reported by the counties on her web page, along with the election returns for the ballot-listed candidates. But she didn’t tally the write-ins herself, so write-ins for candidates like Cynthia McKinney (who had bona fide campaigns for president but who weren’t on the Alabama ballot) were not included in the sources that compile the national vote totals for presidential candidates, such as the Federal Election Commission’s book titled Federal Elections 2008, and Congressional Quarterly’s America Votes 28. These sources do not consider vote totals “official” unless the state (and not just a collection of counties) report them. Presumably, if the bill is enacted, the Secretary of State will provide such a tally in the future for write-in candidates who file a declaration. Thanks to Ed Still for the news about the bill.
Thanks to Independent Political Report for the news that on the evening of January 13, 2010, the Connecticut for Lieberman Party nominated John Mertens for U.S. Senate in 2010. The nomination was by caucus.
The Connecticut for Lieberman Party is ballot-qualified for U.S. Senate in Connecticut in 2010. Connecticut is the only state in which parties are ballot-qualified for some offices but not all of them (except that in Georgia, the Libertarian Party is qualified for the statewide offices but not district and county offices).
U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman formed the party in 2006, and it nominated him, and he was elected under its banner. But he has never taken any interest in the party he formed, and for several years its officers have been activists who don’t like Lieberman. See the party’s blog here. Senator Lieberman is not up for re-election in 2010. But if Mertens polls 1% for U.S. Senate in 2010, the party will continue to be ballot-qualified for U.S. Senate in 2012, when Lieberman is up.
