Three U.S. Senators Will Introduce Bill to Federalize Primary & Caucus Dates

Posted on by July 31, 2007
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On July 31, U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), Joe Lieberman (Independent Dem-Connecticut) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) said they will introduce a bill, to determine when presidential primaries and caucuses should be held. The bill has not yet been introduced.

The bill would divide the U.S. into 4 regions (west, south, midwest and east). A lottery would be held in the year before presidential elections. The lottery would decide which region would have its primaries and caucuses in March, which in April, which in May, and which in June. New Hampshire and Iowa would be permitted to be earlier than March.

When the text of the bill is released, it will be interesting to see how it defines “political party”. Typically, members of Congress who write these bills never think about minor parties. There is also some doubt that the government can tell parties when to hold caucuses, since caucuses are organized and financed by the parties themselves, not the government.

Oklahoma Ballot Access Meeting

Posted on by July 31, 2007
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OKIES (Oklahoma Coalition of Independents), the parent group of Oklahomans for Ballot Access Reform (OBAR), is holding a meeting in Oklahoma City on Sunday, August 5, at 4 pm. The location is the Oklahoma City Downtown Library, 300 Park Ave., the Jim Thorpe Room. The proposed initiative to ease the ballot access laws will be discussed. Contributions to the initiative are being raised. If you wish to help, please send a check to OBAR, PO Box 14042, Tulsa Ok 74159-1042. A fund-raising letter is about to be sent to a large mailing list.

Connecticut Drops Old-Fashioned Mechanical Voting Machines

Posted on by July 31, 2007
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On July 31, Connecticut’s Secretary of State announced that no mechanical “lever” voting machines will be used anywhere in the state in the future. This leaves New York as the only state which still expects to use mechanical “lever” voting machines in the future. The old mechanical machines have been rejected because they don’t leave an audit paper trail and because some voters with particular disabilities cannot use them.

Mechanical voting machines have been harmful to minor parties and independent candidates, for decades. It is extremely difficult to cast a write-in, with that type of machine. Also, use of mechanical voting machines encourages elections officials to use party column or party row ballots. By contrast, the optical-scan ballots that will replace the Connecticut machines have a friendlier format. Each office is presented as a separate item. This encourages the voter to make an independent choice, as he or she goes from office to office. This, in turn, makes it easier for minor parties to poll a large vote for the less important offices, because people don’t usually care very much which party wins an office like State Treasurer or Auditor.

A final disadvantage for minor parties with “lever” machines has been the tendency for minor party votes not to get reported at all. This is not because of mechanical failure, but the older versions required human beings (after the polls have closed) to examine the back of the machine and manually record the number of votes for each candidate. Over decades, there have been many documented instances when the human beings reading the counters in the back of the machine simply didn’t bother to record the numbers for minor party candidates, sometimes because of the “reason” that their votes were so few anyway, it wasn’t worth bothering to record them.

Federal Government Slow to Compile 2006 Election Returns

Posted on by July 31, 2007
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Two agencies of the federal government always publish compilations of the vote for candidates for Congress. Since 1920 the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives has been doing so, and since 1976 the Federal Election Commission has also done so. The Clerk’s publication is called “Statistics of the Congressional Election of (such-and-such a date)” and the FEC’s book is called “Federal Elections (year).”

Normally, both books have been published within 6 months of the election. It has now been over 8 months since the election, and neither agency has published its book. Thanks to Tom Jones for this news.