Chris Vance has a two-part article on the Niskanen Center’s website, about his independent run for the Washington State Senate in 2022. He is a former Republican state legislator and the 2016 Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Washington, but he switched to being an independent in 2017.

Even though he persuaded the Democratic Party not to run anyone for State Senate, 31st district, in 2022, so that he was the only opponent of the Republican incumbent, he lost, polling 43.78% of the vote in November in his two-person race.

Here is the link to the second part of his essay. It shows that the Washington top-two system is no panacea for independent candidates. He is now with the Forward Party. Unfortunately he does not discuss proportional representation, which is the only proposed reform that would really create a multi-party system in the U.S. The Forward Party continues to ignore proportional representation, and instead still advocates that parties should no longer be allowed to have nominees on the ballot, even though his election experience of 2022 rebuts that idea.

The second part of the Vance article has a link to Part One. Part One describes the 2022 race.

On February 1, five Georgia Representatives introduced HB 200, to let cities use ranked choice voting for their own elections of city officers. There are two Republican sponsors, Joseph Gullett and Clay Pirkle; and three Democrats, Stacey Evans, Mary Margaret Oliver, and Debbie Buckner.

On February 7, the Libertarian National Committee issued this statement concerning the Washington, D.C. rally of February 19 that concerns foreign policy. The statement expresses some unhappiness with the speakers’ list.