On August 27, the California Assembly passed SB 439 on a voice vote. It legalizes write-ins in instances when the voter forgets to “x” the box next to the name written in. Since the bill is worded slightly differently than the Senate version of the bill, it now returns to the Senate.
A similar bill passed the legislature last year, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.
On August 27, the California Assembly passed SB 924. It directs the Secretary of State to place a referendum on the February 5, 2007 ballot, asking the voters if the United States should “achieve the immediate, complete, safe and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.” Because the Assembly version differs slightly from the version passed by the State Senate, the bill now returns to the State Senate. Then it goes to the Governor’s desk. The vote in the Assembly was 43-32.
The Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives’ publication, “Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 7, 2006” is now in print. Unfortunately, none of the errors identified on this web site a month ago were corrected. The book omits the Republican nominees for U.S. Senate in Ohio and Pennsylvania; it omits the Mountain Party nominee for U.S. Senate in West Virginia; it omits the Moderate Party nominee for U.S. House in the 8th Illinois district. There may be other errors as well.
Because the Republican vote for U.S. Senate was omitted in Pennsylvania and Ohio, the chart in the back, tallying the national vote for U.S. Senate by party, is grossly wrong. It shows that 31,397,838 voters voted for a Democrat for U.S. Senate, and that 21,247,120 voters voted for a Republican for U.S. Senate.
It is always possible that the Clerk will re-print the book.
On August 27, California AB 1294 passed the Senate Appropriations Committee. It makes it possible for any city or county to use Ranked-Choice Voting for electing its own officers. Now the bill goes to the full Senate. The legislature adjourns for the year on September 11. Currently, only charter cities and charter counties may use ranked-choice systems.
For the second year in a row, the Maine Green Party has received more revenue from the state’s income-tax check-off choice for political parties than the Maine Republican Party received. State income tax returns that have been sent in during 2007 yield $12,146 to the Democratic Party; $4,467 to the Green Party; $4,349 to the Republican Party.
Twelve states let state income taxpayers choose to send a small donation to the political party of their choice, although in Ohio and North Carolina, only the Democratic and Republican Parties are ever listed (even when there are other ballot-qualified parties).
