As noted in an April 8 post, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, MSNBC, and The Politico, are jointly sponsoring a debate on May 3 among nine Republican candidates for president. On April 10, Gallup/USA Today released a poll, showing these results for those nine invited candidates: Rudy Giuliani 38%, John McCain 16%, Mitt Romney 6%, Tommy Thompson 2%, Ron Paul 2%, Mike Huckabee 1%, Sam Brownback 1%, Duncan Hunter 1%, Jim Gilmore 0%. Also, 25% chose candidates who have not announced and 8% had no preference. It is significant that the sponsors of this major debate are willing to invite candidates who are only at 1% or less. Obviously, standards are very different for general election presidential debates; the Commission on Presidential Debates excludes those who poll under 15% in those debates.

On April 1, the Ontario Provincial Citizens Assembly chose the Mixed Member Proportional Voting System, for future Ontario provincial elections. The voters will vote on this system on October 10, 1997.

Under the Mixed Member Proportional system, Ontario would have a 129-seat legislature with 90 district seats and 39 at-large (list) seats. Voters would cast two votes, one for a preferred party and one for a preferred local candidate. If a party deserves more seats than those won in districts, it would receive additional at-large seats. In advance of the election, the party would have nominated not only its district candidates, but its list of at-large candidates. If a party’s vote share is such that it deserves some at-large seats, the particular candidates elected to at-large seats would be taken from the party’s predetermined list of at-large candidates. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.

On April 9, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer signed S3544, which moves the state’s presidential primary to February 5.