The San Diego Union-Tribune of May 17 has these ten scholarly and interesting essays on the electoral college.
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Recently, two South Carolina representative districts switched from having a Democratic member, to having a Republican member.
On May 15, Representative Dennis Moss of the 29th district announced he was switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. See this story. He had been re-elected in November 2008 as a Democrat, receiving 53.3% of the vote in a two-party race.
On April 30, South Carolina had held a special election in the adjacent 30th district to fill a vacancy. Although the Democrats had won the 30th district in November 2008 with 54.7% of the vote, at the special election, Republican nominee Steve Moss was elected with 53.6% of the vote in a two-party race. It is not known if the two new Republicans, both with a surname of Moss, are related.
On May 15, Roy E. Frankhouser died at his home in Pennsylvania at the age of 69. See this story in the Reading Eagle. He had been a KKK leader, and he had been convicted in February 1988 for advising Lyndon LaRouche on how to obstruct a federal grand jury probe into LaRouche’s fundraising. LaRouche himself was convicted in December 1988 for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and tax code violations.
Two bills affecting minor parties and independent candidates have made some headway in Maine. LD 1169 passed the Joint Committee on State and Local Government on May 6, and LD 1041 passed the same committee on May 13.
LD 1169 deletes the requirement that a voter casting a write-in vote must also write-in the name of that candidate’s town or city, and makes other improvements for write-in candidates. LD 1041 alters the law on how a qualified party remains on the ballot. Existing law requires it to have polled 5% for the office at the top of the ticket at either of the last two elections. The bill says a party remains on the ballot if it has 10,000 registered members who voted in the last general election. The only ballot-qualified party besides the Democratic and Republican Parties is the Green Party, which has slightly over 31,000 registered voters, three-fourths of whom voted in the 2008 general election.
North Carolina legislative rules require bills to have passed their house of origin this year by the evening of May 14. Otherwise, they cannot pass this year, although they could still pass next year. No election law bills of interest can pass this year. Bills that did not meet the deadline include S731, the ballot access bill; H47, to establish the initiative; and S150, to move the presidential primary from May to February. Proposed state constitutional amendments to extend the term of state legislators also failed to move.
Two lawsuits, challenging North Carolina’s ballot access laws, are pending. A decision in the lawsuit that challenges the rules for minor parties is expected this summer from the State Appeals Court. The federal case, challenging the independent candidate requirements for U.S. House, is undergoing discovery.