On September 10, the California Senate passed AB 1294, the bill to let any city or county use Instant-Runoff Voting for elections for its own officers. This is the first time any bill has ever passed the California legislature to expand IRV or similar alternate ideas. One Republican, State Senator Tom McClintock, voted for the bill; the other 21 votes for the bill were from Democrats.
Twentynine states ask voters, on voter registration forms, to choose a political party. The paper edition of Ballot Access News periodically includes voter registration data by party. One of the most interesting new registration tallies is coming up soon in California. The data should be available on September 24, 2007. This data, showing how many registered voters there are in each political party and also in each group that is trying to become a political party, will include Unity08.
Several months ago, Unity08 asked California elections officials to keep track of its registrants. Unity08 has not yet been actively working to increase its registration. If it wishes to be a qualified party in California, it must have 88,991 members by December 31, 2007.
Months ago, bills were introduced in both houses of Congress to tell the states when to hold presidential primaries, but both bills have been dormant. However, on September 6, Congressman Sandor Levin (D-Michigan) held a press conference in Washington, D.C., to draw attention to his bill, HR 1523. A somewhat similar bill in the Senate, S 1905, is sponsored by Senators AMy Klobuchar, Lamar Alexander and Joe Lieberman.
HR 1523, as currently worded, applies to all political parties. However, S 1905 only applies to parties that won any electoral votes in the last presidential election. Both bills divide the U.S. into regions, and provide for a random method of determining which regions would hold primaries on which dates. The House bill does not give special treatment to any state, but the Senate bill lets Iowa and New Hampshire go first, in perpetuity.
The Federal Election Commission’s book of 2006 election returns, called Federal Elections 2006, is now in print. It is free and can be obtained by calling the FEC at 800-424-9530. It is the most elaborate election returns book the FEC has ever published. Like the earlier books in the series, it has election returns for both primaries and the general election. It has tables showing the vote for each house of Congress, nationwide, by party (except that it only has “Democratic” “Republican” and “other” compilations).
Unlike previous volumes, this one has 7 color maps of the U.S. that illustrate various points about the election. For example, one map gives a clear picture of which states had U.S. House districts that shifted from Republican to Democratic, and how many in each state. Another map shows which states had all incumbents re-elected.
The California Republican state convention concluded on September 9. The convention made no changes to the party bylaw that excludes independent voters from voting in the party’s presidential primary. Independents can vote in the California Republican Party primary in June 2008, for partisan offices other than president.
The California Republican Party is the only state party in the nation that willingly lets independent voters vote in its primary for Congress and state office, but not vote in its presidential primary. Also, in Arizona, by state law, independents may vote in any party’s primary for Congress and state office, but this Arizona law does not apply to the presidential primary.
