Proponents of Instant-Runoff Voting in St. Paul, Minnesota, have decided not to submit signatures for their initiative this week. Therefore, the initiative asking voters if they wish to use Instant-Runoff Voting in city elections will not be before voters in this year’s municipal elections. Instead, the proponents will submit their signatures somewhat later this month, so that the initiative will be on the 2008 ballot. The proponents feel they need extra time for educating voters.
On August 9, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the New Hampshire Libertarian Party, against a law that took effect last month. It provides that the qualified parties have inexpensive access to a statewide list of registered voters that contains more complete information than any other list of registered voters in the state. New Hampshire does not recognize any political parties except for the Democratic and Republican Parties. The lawsuit was filed in state court in Merrimack County. It has a hearing on August 13.
UPDATE: the judge refused to grant a temporary restraining order at the August 13 hearing. The ACLU had sought to prevent the Secretary of State from distributing the superior lost to the two major parties, while the case is pending. Proceedings on the constitutionality of the law will proceed at a more leisurely pace.
Only 13,262 votes were cast in the famous Ames, Iowa straw poll for the Republican presidential race. Last time this event was held, in 1999, there were over 20,000 votes cast. Voters had to pay $35 to vote. Mitt Romney did not deny published reports that he spent approximately $800 per vote. The results were: Romney 4,516; Huckabee 2,587; Brownback 2,192; Tancredo 1,960; Paul 1,305; Tommy Thompson 1,039; Fred Thompson 203; Giuliani 183; Hunter 174; McCain 101; John Cox 41.
On August 9, a New York state court in Brooklyn heard arguments over whether the New York State Independence Party may give counties outside New York city local control over the party’s nominations process, while at the same time giving the five counties within New York city substantially less control. The court battle is fueled by the intra-party contest between supporters of Lenora Fulani and the faction of the party that opposes her. Meanwhile, Lenora Fulani has said she will probably run for one of the 3 New York city citywide offices in 2009. Incumbent Mayor Mike Bloomberg is termed out so the Mayoral seat will be vacant in 2009.
The Illinois legislature has passed SB 662, and the bill is on its way to the Governor. Illinois is only the third state this year in which any ballot access improvement bills have passed the state legislature. The others are Arkansas and Colorado. SB 662 is not the same bill that had been carrying the improvements; it is an omnibus bill. The bill makes the independent candidate deadline for all office equal to the deadline for new and unqualified party petitions, namely June of election years. It also lowers the 10% petition requirement for independent candidates for legislature to 5%. Assuming the Governor signs the bill, there will no longer be any independent candidate petition requirements anywhere in the nation at a level worse than 5% of the number of registered voters, except for certain small districts in New Hampshire. Thanks to Chris Bennett for this news.
