On October 6, the New York Times published an article about Cornel West’s decision to run for president as an independent instead of as a Green. Unlike almost every other major media story, the New York Times story, written by Charles Homans, stated that Jill Stein most likely did not “spoil” the election for Hillary Clinton. He wrote, “The number of votes received by the (Green) party’s nominee, Jill Stein, in three battleground states would have been enough for Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump in the election – although exit polls in one of the states, Michigan, found that only a quarter of Ms. Stein’s voters said they would have otherwise have voted for Ms. Clinton.”

Michigan in 2016 was the closest of all the states that Trump carried. Homans could have added, but he didn’t, that the same exit polls showed that 14% of the Stein voters otherwise have voted for Trump. When one does the math, one sees that Stein did not change the outcome in any state.

The article is probably behind a paywall for most BAN readers, but here is a link.

On October 5, 2023, a new Mayor (Paul Young) was elected in Memphis, Tennessee. There were 17 candidates in the race, and Mr. Young was the top vote-getter, receiving 28% of the vote. Since 2008, Memphis voters have approved Ranked Choice Voting, rejected the repeal of RCV in a referendum, and rejected an amendment to the City Charter that would have mandated Plurality Voting.

Nonetheless, Plurality Voting was used in this election, because Ranked Choice Voting has been banned in The Volunteer State by the Tennessee General Assembly, which is dominated by the Republican Party.

Here is the story from FairVote.

I posted earlier this week about a paper from the American Enterprise Institute asserting that conservatives should more carefully consider electoral reforms. Here is the link to that study.

On October 2, former President Donald Trump filed this brief in Castro v Aguilar, 2:23cv-1387. This is the case in which John Anthony Castro has sued the Nevada Secretary of State to keep Trump off the Nevada Republican primary ballot.

The brief makes many points, but the most interesting part of the brief explains why the Fourteenth Amendment, section 3, does not apply to presidential candidates. Section 3 mentions congressional candidates, and candidates for presidential elector, but no other specific offices. It goes on to include “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State”. Many readers believe it is obvious that “president” is an “office…under the United States”, but the brief does a good job of rebutting that presumption.

The brief points out that presidents do not take an oath to “support” the Constitution. Instead, the Constitution says presidents take an oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. But every other federal officer takes an oath to “support the Constitution”, and the 14th amendment, section three, only applies to people who had previously taken an oath to “support” the Constitution.