On May 8, in a surprising development, the bill to move the Texas primary (for all office) passed the Senate State Affairs Committee, by 6-3. Now it goes to the Senate. The bill moves the primary from the 2nd week in March to the first week in February.
Lost in the publicity about early presidential primaries is the fact that the District of Columbia holds the nation’s earliest presidential primaries. For 2008, the Democratic, Republican and Green Parties will all have a presidential primary on January 8. The major party primaries are just beauty contests; no delegates are actually selected. Republicans in D.C. start their Delegate selection process in a caucus on February 12; the D.C. Democratic caucus is on February 9.
The post of May 4 about the Scottish elections has been rewritten to correct some errors. The problems with invalid ballots in Scotland related to the Parliamentary elections, not the Ranked Choice elections for local city and town councils.
On May 9, the Vermont House Government Operations Committee will hear SB 108, the bill to use Instant-Runoff voting for congressional elections. The bill has already passed the Senate.
On May 7, the North Carolina Senate Government & Election Reform Committee passed SB 760, the National Popular Vote Plan for presidential elections.
