On June 11, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that nothing in the Minnesota Constitution is inconsistent with a city’s choice to use Instant Runoff Voting for its own elections. The 30-page decision is here. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. The case is Minnesota Voters Alliance v City of Minneapolis. The Minnesota Voters Alliance is the group that opposed IRV.
On June 10, the Maine House passed LD1424 on second reading, but the Maine Senate later that day killed the bill. It would have created a unicameral (one-house only) state legislature, of 151 members. Currently the Senate has 36 members and the House has 151 members.
On June 10, the Maine legislature gave final approval to LD 1041, which revises how a qualified party remains on the ballot. The bill will soon be forwarded to the Governor, who has 10 days to sign or veto it, not counting Sundays.
Existing law requires a party to poll 5% at either of the last two elections, for the office at the top of the ticket (Governor or President). The bill replaces that with the requirement that a party have 10,000 registered members who voted at the last election. Currently, 10,000 is 1.06% of the number of registered voters in Maine.
The Utah state elections office has released a registration tally. The results: Republican 589,326; Democratic 132,011; Libertarian 3,181; Constitution 2,203; independent and other, 772,997.
The percentages are: Republican 39.30%; Democratic 8.80%; Libertarian .21%; Constitution .15%; independent and other 51.54%.
By contrast, in October 2008, the percentages were: Republican 41.60%; Democratic 8.93%; Libertarian .20%; Constitution .14%; independent and other 49.13%.
If Utah had Pennsylvania’s election law, the Democratic Party would not be on the ballot, and all of its nominees for public office would need a petition to appear on the general election ballot. Pennsylvania treats all parties that have less than 15% of the registration as though they were not qualified, for purposes of appearing on the ballot. Thanks to Frank Fluckinger for the new Utah data.
On June 9, voters of Portland, Maine elected a Commission to consider revising the city charter. Although the election was non-partisan, most voters were aware that three Greens were running. Ben Chipman was elected in a two-person contest in district 1, with 62.2% of the vote. Anna Trevorrow was elected to one of the at-large seats. Eight candidates were running for the at-large seats and four were to be elected. Trevorrow received 51.1%.
