On June 20, the Vermont Senate sent HB 429 back to committee, which effectively kills it, because the session is almost over. HB 429 would have made it impossible for someone who lost a primary to then run in the general election as an independent, or the nominee of another party.
I read this Ned Foley’s June 18, 2023 blog post on electionlawblog.org:
https://www.electionlawblog.org/?p=136930
Two comments:
I did not know about Jack Santucci’s recently published book “More Parties or No Parties” until I read this blog post. I knew Jack some years ago when he was either an intern or employee of FairVote (I was Treasurer of FairVote at the time), and I thought very highly of him. I have ordered the book and will read it. I am interested in seeing this “across-the-board dissatisfaction” claim fleshed out. I suspect that this dissatisfaction is only with the mentioned “parties and interest group coalitions,” and not with voters.
Regarding the claim of lack of voter education, I do not know what Arlington County, Virginia has done in this regard, but, during my nearly 25 year tenure as FairVote Treasurer, I recall Philip Macklin.
Dr. Macklin, who passed at the age of 82 in 2008, was a Physics professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He was also a strong advocate of electoral reform, specifically Multiwinner RCV, also known as Single Transferable Vote. Before many people over the years, Dr. Macklin played what I think was a FairVote-produced video explaining the Multiwinner RCV vote counting process. My recollection is it was about 12 minutes long.
Dr. Macklin said of all the people who saw the video at his presentations, only one person claimed that she did not understand the counting process after seeing it.
My own experience in speaking on this subject and playing that video was the same.
Barry Wilson has formed an organization called “56 by 26” to assist and promote Independent candidates for the US House and Senate.
Mr. Wilson, an attorney and former investment banker, was a write-in Independent candidate for US House in Illinois’ 14th Congressional District in 2022. He gathered about 3,500 signatures but was denied a place on the ballot due to a 5,000 valid signature requirement for US House (a relatively low requirement that occurs in years that end in “2” in Illinois; the 2024 requirement will average about 12,000 in Illinois’ 17 congressional districts).
The goal of the organization is to elect 56 (the number of signers of the Declaration of Independence) to the US House and Senate by 2026 (the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration).
The website of 56 by 26 is here:
Danielle Chesebrough is the Mayor of Stonington, Connecticut, although the term technically is “First Selectman”. She is up for re-election on November 7, 2023, and she intends to run for re-election as the nominee of the Forward Party. The election is partisan. In 2021 she was re-elected as the nominee of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
In the 2021 election, she will face a Republican nominee and a Democratic nominee. She has always been a registered independent since she has been in politics. Thanks to Scott Muller for the information that she intends to be a Forward candidate.
On Saturday, June 17, the Republican Party of South Carolina moved its 2024 Presidential Primary back to 18 days after the Nevada Primary with the goal of increasing its importance in the next year’s nomination process. Here is a story from ABC News:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/south-carolina-gop-votes-move-back-2024-primary/story?id=100167365
