Approximately 12% of all the voters in Sarasota County, Florida, failed to vote for U.S. House, even though the race was very close. In the district as a whole, the Republican is leading the Democrat by fewer than 300 votes. The Sarasota County Elections Supervisor, Kathy Dent, speculated that voters (who use touch screens) were confused because the U.S. House race was on a separate screen than the statewide races. She blamed the need for a separate screen on the fact that there was a “glut” of independent candidates for U.S. Senate.

However, there were only 4 independent candidates on the ballot for U.S. Senate, plus the Democratic and Republican nominees, for a total of 6. The Florida Democratic presidential primary in 2004 had 9 candidates on the ballot; the Florida Democratic gubernatorial primary this year had 5 candidates on the ballot. Somehow, no one is known to have complained about the “glut” of candidates in those primaries.

This is the prime season for state legislators to decide what bills they will be introducing next year. In some states, legislators can only introduce a fairly small number of bills, and in some states all bills must be introduced in the next three months.

It is especially important that bills be introduced in the states where the ballot access laws are so restrictive that only the Democratic and Republican Parties are now qualified. These states are Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington. Also, in Georgia, the Libertarian Party is qualified for statewide office only, not district or county office. And in Connecticut, several minor parties are ballot-qualified for some partisan offices but not others.

However, it should be noted that the Maryland Green Party will probably be ballot-qualified in a month or so, since it has almost finished its 2008 party petition; the same is true for the North Dakota Libertarian and Constitution Parties. Therefore, the list of “bad” states above will soon be 17 states, not 19. Also note that since the Arkansas and Ohio petition procedures were declared unconstitutional recently, state legislature in those states must address the question.

Minnesota’s Republican Secretary of State, Mary Kiffmeyer, was defeated on November 7 by the Democratic nominee for that office, Mark Ritchie. Kiffmeyer had not taken a position on alternate voting systems, but Ritchie supports experimenting with Instant-Runoff Voting. This outcome parallels the California Secretary of State race noted on an earlier posting. Thanks to Matt Spencer for this news.