Here is the Alaska November 2026 sample ballot, which uses ranked choice voting.
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Question Three, the Massachusetts top-two initiative that is on the ballot next month, says the top two vote-getters in the primary go onto the general election ballot. It doesn’t exclude persons who receive write-in votes in the primary. So if it passes, and Massachusetts continues to have many many primaries with only one candidate on the primary ballot, the election officials will be obliged to examine all the write-in votes in such primaries and determine which individual placed second. And that person will go on the November ballot, even if he or she doesn’t even wish to run.
Although Massachusetts permits write-ins in primaries currently, code section Ch. 53 sec. 40 says in primaries with no name printed on the ballot, a write-in candidate can’t be nominated unless he or she gets a number of write-ins equal to how many signatures the person would have needed to be on the primary ballot. Virtually always, the vote-counting machines tally up the total number of write-ins and that number is smaller than the number needed for a nomination, so no one bothers to tally up how many write-ins each write-in “candidate” received.
Although many states have laws saying a declared write-in candidate can file to have his or her write-ins tallied, Massachusetts has no such law (except Massachusetts does have such a law for write-in presidential candidates in the November election).
Question Three doesn’t amend Ch. 53 sec. 40, but that section only applies to races with no one on the primary ballot (for example, most Republican primary ballots for legislative races). With Question Three in force, there will be one name on the primary ballot, so in such races Ch. 53 sec 40 won’t apply. So in order to find out who placed second in the primary, election officials will need to sift thru all the miscellaneous write-in results to figure out who came in second.
As to how the other top-two states handle this: California does have a procedure for write-in candidates to file a declaration of write-in candidacy, and those candidates get their write-ins in the primary tallied. If there is only one name on the primary ballot (which always happens in about a dozen California legislative primaries) and there is a single declared write-in candidate, that person does place second and is on the general election ballot. Candidates with as few as 3 write-ins in the primary have then appeared on the November ballot.
Washington state, by contrast, says no one can qualify for the November ballot, even if they do finish second with write-in votes, unless they get a number of write-ins equal to 1% of the total vote cast in the primary.
On September 29, the Massachusetts Libertarian Party asked voters to vote “no” on Question Three, the top-two initiative. Here is the party’s website recommendations on all statewide ballot measures.
The party wrote: “This question would basically eliminate third party candidates from the general election ballot. California has adopted this election method, and often the two-top vote winners are in the same party, depending upon the district both are Democrats or both Republicans, giving voters no real choice in the general election.”
The brief statement made no mention of the problem that if the Measure passes, and if the Massachusetts Libertarian Party polls over 3% of the vote for Auditor on November 3, 2026, that under the old law, the party would have regained its party status. But under the new law, which would go into effect on January 1, 2028, the party would no longer meet the definition of “party”. The measure says that groups become ballot-qualified if they poll 3% for a statewide office in the September primary. The vote test would no longer apply to the November election. But the Massachusetts Libertarian Party obviously did not have its candidate for Auditor on the September 2026 primary, so it would lose its party status on January 1, 2028.
On October 1, the Eighth Circuit decided to rehear Dakotans for Health v Johnson, 25-2940. This is the lawsuit in which the Eighth Circuit had struck down the February petition deadline for initiatives in South Dakota. The original vote had been 2-1. Now all the full-time judges of the Eighth Circuit will rehear the case.
In 1996, Congress passed a law making it a crime for a non-citizen to cast a vote in a U.S. election. On October 1, U.S. District Court Judge David Leibowitz, a Biden appointee, ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not permit Congress to pass laws on voter qualifications. Instead, he wrote, only states may do so. He cites Article One of the original U.S. Constitution. Therefore, he ruled, the federal government cannot prosecute the defendant in this criminal case for casting a vote even though she was not a citizen. U.S.A. v Cox, s.d. of Florida, 0:25cv-60249.
The decision is very interesting, not only because of the subject matter, but also the judge has a knack for writing in an accessible, somewhat entertaining manner. The question that makes this case difficult is that in 1970, in Oregon v Mitchell, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a congressional law that said the voting age should be 18 (this was before the passage of the 26th Amendment in 1971). But the U.S. Supreme Court “majority” in that case was splintered as to rationale. Four justices thought the 14th amendment compelled letting 18-20 year-olds vote, and one Justice, Hugo Black, had a completely different rationale. That causes problems for using Oregon v Mitchell as a precedent. Here is the Opinion.
The same constitutional question is pending in several other criminal cases around the country. But this is the first to be decided.