South Carolina held partisan primaries on June 10. At these primaries, the state tested a new type of government photo-ID law, in which anyone without an ID is still permitted to vote if the individual explains why he or she was unable to produce an ID. According to this story, no voter anywhere in the state was turned away from voting.
Gayle Chaney, independent candidate for Register of Deeds for Orange County, North Carolina, failed to gather enough signatures to get on the November ballot. The county Republican Party had been helping her petition drive, but the drive did not succeed.
In the May 6 Democratic primary, a candidate for Register of Deeds had defeated the incumbent Democrat. The winner of the Democratic primary says he will issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. No Republican had run in the Republican primary for that office, but after the surprise results in the Democratic primary, Republicans wanted to oppose the Democratic primary winner, so turned to the independent procedure to accomplish that (Chaney is a registered Republican). But, North Carolina procedures for independent candidates are so difficult, the drive failed. For non-statewide office, North Carolina independent candidates need a petition signed by 4% of the registered voters.
Los Angeles County, California, keeps a running total of the number of registered voters in each party, and the number of independents. Here is a link to that page.
Since registration closed for the June 3 primary on May 19, the number of registered voters has declined. Every qualified party has declined, except that the Libertarian Party has increased. The number of voters not registered in any qualified party has declined. Democrats have dropped 4,731; Republicans have dropped 3,980; American Independent has dropped 234; Americans Elect has dropped 28; Green has dropped 67; Peace & Freedom has dropped 20; the total of independent voters and voters registered in other parties has dropped 670.
Libertarian registration has gained 61.
On July 5, Gravis Marketing released a poll for the Minnesota statewide races, including the Attorney General’s race. For that office, the results are: Democrat-Farmer-Labor Lori Swanson 49%, Republican Sharon Anderson 36%, Independence Party nominee Brendan Borgos 8%, Green Andy Dawkins 7%.
If Dawkins receives as much as 5%, the Green Party will regain its qualified status, for both 2016 and 2018. The Green Party hasn’t been a qualified party in Minnesota since November 2004.
The poll seems somewhat peculiar because when one adds up the percentages for each candidate, there is no room left for voters who say they are undecided. Thanks to Michael for the link.
The Morris Daily Herald here condemns Illinois Democratic Party leaders for filing challenges to the two statewide initiatives this year. So far the two initiatives are off the ballot, but the legislative term limits measure may yet qualify if it wins in the Illinois Supreme Court.
Here is the number of votes received by each minor party write-in candidate in the California June 3, 2014 primary (except that the results still aren’t available for the Assembly, 5th district):
Board of Equalization district 3: Libertarian Jose Castaneda 173; Peace & Freedom Eric Moren 127; Peace & Freedom Jan Tucker 34.
U.S. House district 11: American Independent Virginia Fuller 140.
U.S. House district 23: Libertarian Gail Lightfoot 31.
U.S. House district 43: American Independent Brandon Cook 12.
U.S. House district 44: Peace & Freedom Adam Shbeita 5.
Assembly 5: Libertarian Patrick D. Hogan 60.
Assembly 41: Libertarian Ted Brown 84.
Assembly 60: Libertarian John Farr 34.
Assembly 75: Libertarian Mike Paster 14.
Assembly 79: American Independent George R. Williams 115.
The only three who will appear on the November ballot are Shbeita, Hogan, and Williams, because in each case they placed second. In all three cases, only one name was on the primary ballot, and the minor party write-in candidate was the only declared write-in candidate. Therefore none of these three could have been kept off the November ballot, unless they had polled zero write-ins.