On June 1, the California Assembly passed AB 1121, the bill to let 10 general law cities or counties use Instant-Runoff Voting for their own elections. Thanks to Rob Dickinson for the news. The vote was 45-30.
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The June 1 print issue of the New York Times has this op-ed by Bob Barr, Libertarian Party presidential nominee last year. Barr argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should honor the habeas corpus petition filed by Troy Davis, who is on death row in Georgia. Unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, Georgia could set an execution date at any time. Barr says in the op-ed he is pro-death penalty but he points out that no court has heard the latest evidence that Davis is innocent.
San Jose, the 10th most populous city in the United States, is considering using Instant-Runoff Voting for its own elections. Since it is a charter city, under California law, it is free to do this if it wishes. The San Jose Elections Commission will discuss IRV at its June 10 meeting. On June 11, the New America Foundation and Common Cause are sponsoring a panel discussion about IRV, featuring two city council members, Sam Liccardo and Ash Kalra. It is between noon and 1:15 pm in room 225 of the Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library at 150 E. San Fernando Street in downtown San Jose. The meeting is free and lunch is furnished.
To implement IRV, the city council would need to place a charter amendment on the ballot. If San Jose were to implement IRV, it would be the most populous jurisdiction using IRV in the U.S. Thanks to Blair Bobier for this news.
On May 29, the Illinois Green Party issued a press release, asking Governor Pat Quinn to veto HB 723, which makes it more difficult for ballot-qualified parties to nominate candidates. Specifically, if ballot-qualified parties wish to nominate someone after the February primary is over with, by committee meeting, they can no longer do that unless they submit a petition for each nominee.
The press release points out that, already, one-candidate general elections for the state legislature are very common. In November 2008, 59 of 118 State House races had only one nominee on the ballot, and 20 of 40 State Senate races had only one person on the ballot. The press release also points out that during the years 2002 through 2008, 42 Republicans, 29 Democrats, and 15 Greens were nominated after the primary. If the post-primary method were severely restricted, the number of one-candidate races would be even higher.
On June 1, Free & Equal faxed a letter to Governor Quinn, asking for a veto and reminding him that he has always championed himself as a reformer.
On May 29, the U.S. Department of Justice objected to Georgia rules for voter registration that were passed in 2008. Georgia is one of the states that can’t change its election laws without approval by the Voting Rights Section of the Justice Department. The 2008 Georgia rules say that when someone registers to vote, the information on that registration form is matched against Social Security records, and Georgia drivers license records, and if any discrepancy is found, the voter registration is rejected.
The Justice Department letter says that by March 2009, the state had rejected 199,606 registration forms, and that a disproportinate number of the rejected forms are minority ethnic groups. The Justice Department letter cites evidence that the vast majority of rejected voter registration forms were rejected because a single digit was accidentally transposed in a drivers license number, or a Social Security number. See this news story, which contains a link to the Justice Department’s 6-page letter of disapproval. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s Election Law Blog for the link.
Note that this issue is separate from the 2009 Georgia law that requires newly-registering voters to submit documents proving that they are citizens. The process of obtaining Justice Department approval for that law lies in the future.