The Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives has published “Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 8, 2022”.
The Clerk has been publishing similar books starting in 1920. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link. The print edition probably isn’t available yet, but will be eventually.
Seven Democratic Representatives in Minnesota have introduced HF 2802. It changes the definition of a qualified party from one that polled 5% at either of the last two elections for a statewide office, to one that polled 10%. It would take effect before the 2024 election if it passed.
The bill is identical to SF 1827, introduced earlier by Senator Jim Carlson. The House authors are Representatives Luke Frederick, Mike Freiberg, Emma Greenman, Nathan Coulter, Zack Stephenson, Kristi Pursell, and Esther Agbaje.
The Democratic legislators are introducing this bill in order to eliminate the ballot-qualified Legal Marijuana Now Party. In Minnesota, all qualified parties nominate by open primary. There have been insincere candidates filing for the primary of the Legal Marijuana Now Party, not because they care about marijuana legalization, but in order to injure the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nominee. The solution for this problem is a bill that would allow small qualified parties to nominate by convention, to give such parties more control over which races they contest, and whom to choose.
On March 10, the Oregon Secretary of State said the No Labels Party has enough valid signatures to be a qualified party in 2024 and 2026. It will nominate by convention, not primary.
On March 9, the Mississippi House passed SCR 533. It would restore the initiative process. The House amended the bill to lower the number of signatures from 12% of the number of registered voters, to 12% of the last gubernatorial vote, so now the two versions of the bill differ and the Senate will consider the amendment.
On March 2, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed SB 1820, which bans any local government from using ranked choice voting. The bill impacts the city of Memphis, which had voted some time ago to use ranked choice voting for its own elections. The state had claimed that Memphis had no authority to do that, so it hadn’t been used yet.
