On November 8, North Dakota voters passed an initiative to amend the state constitution and provide for term limits for Governors and state legislators. It passed with over 63% of the vote. This initiative only got on the ballot because the State Supreme Court overturned the Secretary of State’s decision to keep it off the ballot.
Arkansas voters have defeated Issue Two, put on the ballot by the legislature. It would have required initiatives to poll 60% of the vote in order to pass, instead of just a simple majority.
The November 8 election resulted in the Democratic Party winning control of both houses of the Minnesota legislature. For some time the Democrats have had a majority in the House but not in the Senate.
Governor Tim Walz is a Democrat. Now that Democrats can pass their favored legislation, it is somewhat likely that a bill will be passed to give parties, or at least small qualified parties, more control over their nominations process. Both the Legal Marijuana Now Party and the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party must nominate by primary. There is no registration by party in Minnesota, so any person can enter any party’s primary merely by paying a filing fee.
For the past two elections, Republicans have entered candidates in the primaries of those two parties for insincere reasons. They don’t care about drug legalization but they perceive that most voters who vote for the two pro-marijuana parties would vote Democratic in the absence of a third party choice. They seize the nomination of one of the two minor parties hoping to affect the general election vote. The two minor parties themselves are upset by this behavior, but have been powerless to do anything about it. But the election law might be changed in 2023 to let them have more control over their primaries.
The Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party is no longer a qualified party, but the Legal Marijuana Now Party is. Neither party got 5% for any statewide race on November 8, 2022. But the Legal Marijuana Now Party got over 5% for U.S. Senate in 2020, so it is still on the ballot.
Now that Democrats can enact their agenda, though, marijuana is likely to become legal in 2023, and the entire rationale for the continued existence of the Legal Marijuana Party will diminish.
The Alabama Libertarian Party had been hoping to get 20% of the vote for at least one statewide race, but most of the Libertarians running against only a Republican received between 15% and 16%. Looking at the Treasurer’s race, the Libertarian received over 20% of the vote in Bullock, Choctaw, Dallas, Greene, Hale, Jefferson, Lowndes, Macon, Madison, Mobile, Montgomery, Perry, Russell, Shelby, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, and Wilcox Counties. That list includes the five most populous counties.
No other state has a higher vote test for retention of party qualified status than 5%, except for 10% in Virginia and New Jersey. Also Georgia requires 20% for full status, but approximately 2% for status for the statewide offices.
Seattle voters have rejected Approval Voting, for city council elections. Ranked Choice Voting may or may not have passed; not enough votes have been counted to know. Both were on the ballot yesterday. Approval Voting was an initiative, and the city council put the ranked choice alternate on the ballot. Thanks to Darryl Perry for this news.
