Currently, Maine uses ranked choice voting for federal office in both primaries and general elections. But for state office, ranked choice voting is only used for primaries, not general elections. A proposed constitutional amendment to allow ranked choice in general elections for state office has advanced. LD 1917 passed the joint Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee on May 18. Thanks to Fairvote for this news.

If the bill passes the legislature, then the voters would vote on it. The reason Maine has a different policy for state office than for federal office is that several years ago, the State Supreme Court ruled that using ranked choice voting for state office in general elections violates the State Constitution. So the proposal would amend the State Constitution.

A book will soon be published called “The Oxford Handbook of American Election Law.” It will have a chapter by Law Professor Derek Muller on ballot access laws.

This book should not be confused with an older book, “The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior”, which had no content relating to ballot access laws.

A North Carolina State Court of Appeals will soon decide how many signatures an independent candidate needs to get on the ballot for Orange County Commissioner. The law says an independent needs 4% of the number of registered voters in the district. In Orange County, there are two rounds for County Commissioner elections. In the first round, the voters of district two are the only voters. But in the run-off, the entire county votes.

See this story. The independent candidate, Connor Fraley, argues that the 4% should be calculated on the number of registered voters in district two, not in the entire county. He lost in the lower court but is appealing.