Four State Senators have introduced SF 2270, and thirty-five State Representatives have introduced HF 2486. Both of these identical bills would provide for ranked choice voting for all primaries and all general elections, for all federal and state office.
Minnesota already has considerable experience with ranked choice voting, in city elections.
On March 2, the Vermont House passed HB 97 by voice vote. It moves the petition deadline for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties from August to May. It also bans “sore losers.” But the bill was amended so it no longer bans fusion.
UPDATE: this post is inaccurate. The final version of the bill does not change the petition deadline. Also the bill is now HB 429, not HB97. For more details see the blog post of March 3.
The deadline change is unconstitutional. There are approximately 30 lawsuit decisions that say independent candidate deadlines cannot be earlier than the primary, and Vermont’s primary is in August.
Florida Senator Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill) has introduced SB 1248. It would cancel the party recognition of any political party that had ever supported slavery. If it were enacted, the Democratic Party could get back on the ballot only by choosing a new name. Also it would lose all its registrants and need to start from zero. See this story. Thanks to Eric Wong for the link.
Ironically, in 2019 a Democratic State Senator introduced a bill in California, SB 696, that would have removed the American Independent Party from the ballot unless it changed its name. It passed the legislature, but Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it.
On February 26, Bob Richards died at the age of 97. He had been a Gold Medalist in the Olympics of 1952 and 1956 in pole vaulting, and he had been the Populist Party’s presidential nominee in 1984. He had polled 66,366 votes, and had been on the ballot in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. His best showing had been in Idaho, where he only appeared on the ballot because the Populist Party won its ballot access lawsuit in the Ninth Circuit.
The Populist Party was a new party in 1984, and ceased to run candidates after 1994, although its monthly newspaper still is published. The other two men nominated for president by the Populist Party, David Duke in 1988 and Bo Gritz in 1992, are still living.
In November 2022, the Washington, D.C. city council passed an ordinance letting adult residents vote for city office, whether they are citizens or not. Congress may veto ordinances passed by the D.C. city council, but this ordinance survived. Although the US House voted to cancel it, the Senate did not, and the period for congress to have done that expired February 23, 2023.
