On Monday, October 30, the trial started in a Colorado state trial court in Anderson v Griswold, the case over whether former President Donald Trump should be allowed on the Republican presidential primary ballot next year. See this story. The plaintiffs are presenting evidence about the January 6, 2021 incident at the national Capitol.
On November 5, 2024, Nevada voters will vote on a top-five system. It already passed in November 2022, but in Nevada, constitutional initiatives must pass two elections in a row in order to take effect. The Las Vegas Rview-Journal has this editorial, dated October 29, opposing the initiative. Thanks to Fairvote for the link.
Proponents of a top-four or a top-five system have worked to get their idea adopted in many states, but always, these proposals include use of Ranked Choice Voting in the general election. The reason is obvious. A top-four system without ranked choice voting in the general election could result in a general election race between three Democrats and a Republican, or one Democrat and three Republicans. Such an outcome would not be fair to the party with multiple candidates, because that party’s vote would be split up.
Surprisingly, however, some top-four proponents in Montana are trying to qualify an initiative for top-four that does not include ranked choice voting. They have not yet started collecting signatures. They are temporarily blocked because the Attorney General ruled that their proposal violates the single subject rule for initiatives. On October 26, the initiative proponents asked the Montana Supreme Court to overrule the Attorney General. Montanans for Election Reform Action Fund v Knudsen, OP-23-0634.
The Attorney General’s analysis, claiming the initiative violates the single-subject rule, is included in the court filing, which can be seen here. The Attorney General’s analysis seems weak. The initiative appears to me to encompass a single subject.
On October 30, Minnesota Congressmember Dean Phillips, who is running for president in the Democratic primaries, was interviewed by Michael Smerconish on CNN. He was asked whether he had thought about running as an independent. He said, “I say shame on anybody who might run as an independent candidate in this consequential race, the most important election in our country’s history, whether it’s Cornel West, whether it’s Robert Kennedy, whether it’s any other initiative that would have an alternate candidate that would peel votes from whomever would be taking on Donald Trump — shame on you. I would never do that.
“I’m doing this the way we have constructed our democracy.”
See this story. Perhaps Phillips has never read the Copenhagen Document of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, a document the United States, along with many other countries, signed in June 1990. We and the other nations pledged to “respect the right of individuals and groups to establish, in full freedom, their own political parties or other political organizations and provide such political parties and organizations with the necessary legal guarantees to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment before the law.”
Phillips’ conception of “our democracy” seems to be that two particular parties will be given a monopoly on political activity.
On October 27, the New Jersey State Appeals Court that is hearing the fusion case refused to expedite the lawsuit. Therefore, it almost certainly will not have any impact on the 2024 election, no matter which way the decision goes. The case is In Re Tom Malinowski Petition for Nomination for General Election, A-3542-21T2. If the case had been expedited, and if fusion advocates had won, then the Moderate Party of New Jersey would have been on the November ballot, showing a nominee for U.S. House who was also the Democratic nominee.
