Tag Archives: Ohio

Ballot Access 2024

By tmess2 | Published April 21, 2024

In a completely shocking turn of events, some states (primarily those with a Republican Secretary of State) seem to be about to deny the Democratic ticket its place on the ballot.  The issue is that every state has a deadline for established parties to certify their presidential ticket to the state election authority.  Ohio is the earliest with a deadline ninety days before the election.  (Depending on the year, that deadline falls between August 4 and August 10.)  By contrast, Alaska’s deadline is forty-eight days before the election (with the deadline falling between September 15 and September 21).

The early deadlines are problematic because they ignore the informal traditions about the scheduling of the conventions and the real world.  The big real world issue which impacts the scheduling of the conventions is the Summer Olympics.  Barring cancellation or postponement (like happened in 2020), the Summer Olympics are always in the Summer of the presidential election year.  Simply put, the political parties want their convention to dominate the news and for all eyeballs to be glued to their convention.  (Of course, as the current nomination system has drained conventions of almost all of the drama, getting people to watch the convention is harder, but the parties do not want to compete with the Summer Olympics for viewers.)  And, over the years, the Olympics have expanded.  This year, the Paris Olympics runs from Wednesday, July 24 through Sunday August 11.  In practical terms, that means that the last potential week for a July convention is the week of July 15.  And, if you want some news coverage during the week leading into the convention, the first potential week for an August convention is the week of August 19.  Going back to 1992, the dates of the Summer Olympics has been:  1992 Olympics — July 25-August 9; 1996 Olympics — July 19-August 4; 2000 Olympics (held in Southern Hemisphere) — September 15-October 1; 2004 Olympics — August 13-29; 2008 — August 8-24; 2012 — July 27-August 12; 2016 — August 5-21; 2020 Olympics (original scheduled dates) — July 24 through August 9.   The other big world impact is that most states now use primaries to award delegates with the last primaries taking place in early June.  That makes it almost impossible for a major party to move its convention before July.

Turning to the informal traditions, the party out of power normally goes first.  The last time that the party in power went first was 1932.  (Prior to World War 2, the Republicans normally went first, but in 1956 (the first time that Republicans were in power after World War 2), the Republicans opted to go after the Democrats, and the tradition of flipping sequence based on which party held the White House has been followed ever since.  The dates for the party out of power since 1992 have been:  1992 — July 13-16 (Democrats/ending before Summer Olympics); 1996 — August 12-15 (Republicans/ starting 8 days after Summer Olympics); 2000 — July 31-August 3 (Republican/Summer Olympics not an issue); 2004 — July 26-29 (Democrats/ending before Summer Olympics); 2008 — August 25-28 (Democrats/starting 1 day after Summer Olympics); 2012 — August 27-30 (Republicans/starting 15 days after the Summer Olympics); 2016 — July 18-21 (Republicans/ending before Summer Olympics); 2020 — July 13-16 (originally scheduled)/August 17-20 (actual dates) (Democrats/ original schedule before Summer Olympics).  In other words, in the previous eight election cycles, the party out of power has held their convention “too late” to comply with the Ohio statute four times out of eight (three times if you use the original date).  The dates for the party in power since 1992 have been: 1992 — August 17-20 (Republicans/starting 8 days after Summer Olympics); 1996 — August 26-29 (Democrats/2 weeks after Republicans); 2000 — August 14-17 (Democrats/2 weeks after Republicans/Summer Olympics not an issue); 2004 — August 30-September 2 (Republicans/1 day after Summer Olympics); 2008 — September 1-4 (Republicans/week after Democrats); 2012 — September 4-6 (Democrats/week after Republicans); 2016 — July 25-28/week after Republicans/before Summer Olympics); 2020 — August 24-27 (Republicans/originally 15 days after Summer Olympics).  In short, the only time in the past 32 years in which the party in power held their convention before Ohio’s deadline was 2016 when the Olympics did not start until August. Continue Reading...

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Primary Elections — Week of March 18

By tmess2 | Published March 17, 2024

With the presidential nominations effectively wrapped up, the focus of primary season shifts to Congress.  States face conflicting incentives in terms of primary scheduling.  First, for presidential primaries, an early primary increases the chance that a state will vote before the nomination is effectively decided.  But, especially a state with a part-time legislature that only meets in the Spring, a Summer primary allows the legislature to wrap up its business (with appropriate goodies for the districts of favored legislators facing a tough race) and gives the legislators time to spend back in their district campaigning.  Second, it saves money for a state to combine presidential primaries with the primaries for other offices.  Thus, only some of the states with early primaries for president also have the primaries for other offices on the same day.

This week, three states have primaries for “other” offices.  The first is actually a special election.  That election is to fill the seat created by Kevin McCarthy deciding that he did not want to return to just being a member of the House after he lost the vote of no confidence (technically motion to vacate the chair) last fall.  For regular elections, California uses a “top two” primary in which, regardless of the vote for the leading candidate, the second-placed candidate advances to the general election.  For special elections, if the leading candidate gets a majority, that candidate wins.  If not, there will be a runoff between the top two candidates.  Two weeks ago, there was the regular primary for the seat.  Given how long it takes California to process its ballot, the race for second place is still too close to call.  Given that most of the votes remaining appear to be from the county in which the current third-placed candidate finished ahead of the second-placed candidate, the primary may actually be recount close.  Right now, the “second” Republican is still in second place.  That should discourage Republicans from unifying behind the current leading candidate in the special election (as supporters of the Republican currently in second have hopes that their candidate will make the general election and do not want to make the leading candidate the incumber candidate).  As the leading candidate did not get a majority in the primary, there is a good chance that there will be a runoff in this race.  If the leading candidate (Kevin McCarthy’s handpicked candidate, Vince Fong) can get the majority, the Republicans get this seat back.  If not, it remains vacant until after the runoff in two months (probably keeping the seat vacant through June).  Needless to say, the Republicans in Washington are praying for an outright winner on Tuesday.

The next state on the list is Ohio.  In recent years, ticket splitting has declined, and it has become harder for a Congressional candidate to win a state/district that voted for the presidential candidate of the other party.  Currently, there are only senators (three Democrats and two Republicans) representing states won in 2020 by the other party.  The three Democrats are up for election this year.  Joe Manchin of West Virginia has decided that, despite his personal popularity in his state, the presidential margin is just too much to overcome.  That leaves Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio to face their voters this year.  Given that Ohio has been getting redder in recent years, Republicans are hopeful that whomever they nominate might win the seat in November to give the Republicans a senate majority.  But with Republicans thinking that they can win, the primary attracted multiple candidates.  The race originally looked like a three-person race.  Objectively, if Republicans wanted somebody ready to be a senator, the obvious choice would be the current Secretary of State, Frank LaRose.  But serving in an executive position requires actually following the law.  And, while Secretary LaRose has definitely put his thumb on the scale as much as he can, those decisions disqualify him for “purists.”  Neither of the other two candidates would be a strong contender if the Republican primary was being held in the real world.  With Secretary LaRose struggling, the establishment has unified behind Matt Dolan.  What Mr. Dolan has going for him is that his family is wealthy, and he has been willing to spend enough of his own money to be competitive (both this cycle and two years ago when he put up a solid fight in the primary for the other seat).  The Trump candidate is Bernie Moreno.  As was the case back in 2022, for Democrats choosing to participate in the Republican primary, the question is whether to vote for the weaker candidate (Moreno) to increase the odds of winning in the general election or to vote for the sanest candidate (Dolan) just in case Brown loses in November.  The national party has run adds attacking Moreno as too extreme in the reverse psychology ploy to get Republicans to commit political suicide by nominating Moreno. Continue Reading...

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Special Elections 2024

By tmess2 | Published December 10, 2023

Things are about to get very interesting in the House of Representatives.  While there have been a large number of representatives who are not running for re-election.  The irony of Republicans explaining their reason for leaving as the unpleasant environment in Congress is hard to miss.  But the focus of this post is not on those leaving in January 2025.  It is those who have left (involuntarily) or are about to be leaving mid-term.

At the present time, we have a vacancy in New York’s Third District due to the expulsion of fraudster who called himself George Santos.  (And the fact that the majority of House Republicans did not want to expel him despite overwhelming evidence of fraud while wanting to open an impeachment of President Biden with no evidence says something about the shell of a serious political party that the Republicans have become).  But we have also had announcements of the intent to resign in three other districts (so far) —   California’s Twentieth District (former Speaker Kevin McCarthy who will be leaving sometime later this month or in early January),  New York’s  Twenty-Sixth District (Democrat Brian Higgins who will be leaving in February), and Ohio’s  Sixth District (Republican Bill Johnson who will be leaving in March).

These departures in the House will alter the size of the Republican majority in the House.  The rules for vacancies in the House are different than the rules for vacancies in the Senate.  Under the Seventeenth Amendment, the governor of each state can temporarily fill a vacancy in the Senate until an election can be held to fill the balance of the term.  By contrast, there is no equivalent provision for the House.  Thus a House seat remains vacant until there is a special election.  For both the House and the Senate, the timing of the special election is left to the state.  Especially for the Senate, there is a wide range of rules with some states leaving the appointee in office until the next regularly scheduled election (which can create the weirdness of having two elections for the same office — one for the last three to four weeks of the current term and one for the next term — at the same time) and others requiring a prompt special election.  But the states also have different rules for the scheduling of House elections (and who chooses the candidates). Continue Reading...

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November 2023 Elections

By tmess2 | Published November 4, 2023

In the U.S., in something that would be a surprise to the Franers, the presidential election has become the “main” election.  Turnout is always highest for the presidential election.  But that is not the only only election, and other elections can be even more important.  To save money, most states have their statewide elections coincide with federal elections (either the presidential election or the mid-term election).  But a handful of states have taken a different approach and hold their elections in odd-numbered years.  In addition, many states (while holding the elections for state offices at the same time as federal election in even-numbered years) hold local elections in the odd-numbered years.  And most states, even if November in odd-numbered years is not a “regular” election date keep it available as a potential election date for special elections and propositions.   This year, the November election will feature several big races.

At the state-wide office level, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky hold their elections for governor in the year immediately proceeding the presidential election.  Louisiana is a little different because it holds a “jungle primary” which is actually an open general election (i.e. no party primaries) with a runoff if nobody gets 50%.  This “primary” election was several weeks ago, and the Republicans picked up the governor’s office in Louisiana.  Given that Louisiana is a deep red state, this pickup was not too surprising as it takes the right Democrat to have a chance at winning and the incumbent Democrat was term limited.  The new governor is a right wing extremist, and we will probably be hearing a lot of nonsense out of the Pelican State for the next eight years.

But the races for Governor in Kentucky and Mississippi will be on Tuesday.  (At least the initial vote will be on Tuesday as Mississippi has a runoff provision if nobody gets to 50%.)  The governor in Kentucky is a Democrat and the governor in Mississippi is a Republican.  Both are favored to be reelected but the challengers in both states have chances at pulling an upset.  In Kentucky, the challengers big advantage is that he is a Republican.  But the Republican candidate has been a controversial figure as Attorney General, and the Democratic incumbent is popular which might be just enough to hold onto the office.  In Mississippi, the Governor has gotten entangled in some scandals and the challenger happens to be a member of a famous family even if that fame was over 50 years ago.  But Mississippi is still a deep red state.  In short, the most likely outcome is that there will be no changes, but it is also possible that either or both states could flip. Continue Reading...

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Direct Democracy in Ohio

By tmess2 | Published August 6, 2023

This Tuesday, voters in Ohio will decide the future of direct democracy in Ohio.  For the most part, the U.S., like many other democracies is a republic.  In other words, the usual way that laws get made is through the legislative process with elected representatives debating, amending, and voting on proposals.  In theory, the will of the majority is expressed through their representatives.  A little over a century ago, reformers during the Progressive Era argued that there were flaws in the representative system that sometimes allowed a minority to block useful and popular legislation.  The remedy was the initiative and referendum process which allowed ordinary voters to get proposals on the ballot were they could be directly determined by the voters.

Now, not every state has authorized the initiative and referendum process.  Even in those that do, the rules differ as to how many signatures are required.  However, for the most part, states that allow for direct democracy (whether through proposals initiated by voters or by proposals referred to the voters by the government) only require a simple majority for the proposal to pass.

Even from the beginning, there has been resistance to the initiative and referendum process.  After all, special interests that are able to get what they want from elected officials do not like the voters having the ability to override those efforts. Continue Reading...

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Georgia Runoff

By tmess2 | Published December 4, 2022

The last election of 2022 will conclude on Tuesday with the runoff election for U.S. Senator in Georgia.    While there are still some races that will go to recounts, all of the statewide and congressional races seem to be outside the margin at which a recount could make a difference.  (There are three races with margins between 500 and 600 votes — Arizona Attorney General, California Thirteenth District, and Colorado Third District.  In the Minnestoa Senate recount in 2008, the net swing from the original results to the recount results was 450 votes with an additional 87 votes gained in the election contest.  The closest of the three races going to recount is 511.   While other recounts have resulted in bigger swings, they were in races with bigger margins and Minnesota remains the largest swing that changed the results of a race.

The significance of the Senate race is not quite as big as it was in 2021 due to the Republicans apparently taking the House (but the Republican’s inability to reach a consensus on the next Speaker will be the subject of a future post) and the fact that the Democrats already have 50 seats.  But the result still matters for five key reasons.

First, the additional seat will alter the composition of committees.  With a 50-50 Senate, the committees are evenly divided.  While the rules currently allow a bill or nomination to proceed to the Senate floor on a tie vote, a 51-49 Senate would result in the Democrats having a majority on the committees. Continue Reading...

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The Midterms — Preview (Part 1)

By tmess2 | Published October 29, 2022

We are into the home stretch of the campaign.  This election comes down to those who want to protect women’s rights, LGBQT rights, our democracy, the middle class, and the safety of our streets on one side against those who want to undermine the concept of free and fair elections and impose an authoritarian theocracy on the other side.  The midterm elections are more like parliamentary elections in other countries.  There is no national race and winning is about the results of multiple state and local races.

As in 2020, there is expected to be a large number of votes by mail.  Some states have changed their laws to allow counting of mail-in ballots to start earlier, but some still require the process of verifying and counting mail-in ballots to begin on election day.  So there will be some states in which the Republican candidate will take an early lead based on the in-person votes, but the Democrat candidate will close that gap (and potentially take the lead) as the mail-in votes are counted.  On the other hand, in states that announce mail-in and early voting results first, the opposite will occur.

These previews will go in the order of poll closing times.  In states that are in two time zones, some states will release results as polls close.  Others will hold off on releasing results until all polls close.  If I know that a state holds off until all polls close, I will put the state in the time when the last polls close.  Otherwise, I will put the state in when the majority of the polls close.  I will list the time by Central Standard Time as that is my time zone.  For ease of conversion, CST is UTC +8 (i.e. it is 8 p.m. UTC when it is noon CST), Atlantic ST +2 (2 p.m AtST for noon CST), Eastern ST +1 (1 p.m. EST for noon CST),  Mountain ST -1 (MST 11:00 a.m. for noon CST), Pacific ST -2 (PST 10 a.m. for noon CST), Alaska ST -3 (9 a.m. AkSt for noon CST) and Hawaiian ST -4 (8:00 a.m. HST for noon CST). Continue Reading...

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The Fall Campaign

By tmess2 | Published September 4, 2022

Traditionally, Labor Day Weekend was seen as the start of the Fall campaign (at least by the media).  If that was ever true, it no longer is.  With cable and websites like Facebook and Youtube, there are a lot of relatively inexpensive way to get advertisements out during July and August.  If a campaign waits unti September to begin its ad campaign, the other side has already defined the race.

But, by this point in the cycle, we are down to the last handful of primaries, and the national committees and big PACS are already looking to decide where they are going to be spending the big bucks in late September and early October.  (As the change in the mechanism for advertising has obliterated Labor Day as the start of the fall campaign, the change in voting habits (with a significant percentage casting early votes or mail-in ballots) has also altered when the big final push begins.  While, in a close race, last minute news and ads can make a difference, it is just as important to get as many votes locked in as early as possible so that the last-minute spending can be focused on a tiny number of votes.

But that is the inside baseball stuff of campaigns.  The purpose of this post is to set the stage for the next eight weeks.  For the past two years, Democrats have had the frustration of a very narrow margin in the House of Representatives and a dead-even Senate.  Because Nancy Pelosi may be one of the all-time great Speakers, Democrats have been mostly able to pass things in the House.  The Senate, however, has been very, very difficult.  The filibuster rules has limited the Democrats to passing anything significant via the reconciliation process.  Even the reconciliation process requires keeping the entire Democratic caucus together which has proven difficult as a single member can insist on changes to any proposal.  And the  lack of a majority has also prevented any changes to the filibuster rule (again due to the ability a single Democrat to veto any proposed change). Continue Reading...

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The 2022 Elections: Revenge of the Trumpists

By tmess2 | Published May 1, 2022

We are on the eve of the start of the first big segment of the primary season for the 2022 election.  Texas had its primary back in March, but primary season really starts this Tuesday with primaries in Ohio and and Indiana.

Including the Texas run-off, there are primaries or run=offs set for every week between now and June 28 other than the week of Memorial Day.  During that period, a grand total of thirty states will have primaries or run-offs (with some having both).  There is normally a longer breaker between the Spring primaries and the late Summer/early fall round of primaries.  But due to postponed election dates, Maryland will have its primary in mid-July and North Carolina will have its run-off on July 5 or July 26, depending on the offices which require a run-off.  Phase two of the primary season begins on August 2 and runs through September 13.

Mid-term elections are tough for the party in power.   The public always want the big problems solved instantly.  And big problems are typically years in the making and will require years to solve.  Making things worse, the party that wins an election always tries to pass what their primary voters want (which is not the same as what general election voters want) but ends up with in-fighting between the various factions of the party.  It has been a long time since any party has won by a big enough margin to be able to pass legislation despite those differences. Continue Reading...

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Redistricting 2022

By tmess2 | Published January 29, 2022

The legislative part of redistricting is almost complete.  Only nine states are still in the process of drafting the “first” set of maps.  (Tw of those nine states are my home state of Missouri and the neighboring state of Kansas.  In both states, the maps are through one house of the legislature and are under consideration in the second house.)  In three states (Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), the first set of maps defaulted to the courts when the legislatures and the governors were unable to agree on the new maps.

But in the remaining states, the maps have been adopted.  And that means that the battle over the maps has moved to the courts.  At this point, I am aware of three states in which we have rulings about the new maps.  Two of them are no surprise, or, at least, not much of a surprise.  In Ohio, the Ohio Supreme Court found that the map passed by the Ohio legislature violated the Ohio Constitutions rules on redistricting which bars drawing a map which unduly favors one political party or unduly splits political subdivisions.  In North Carolina, the North Carolina Supreme Court has under review an initial decision upholding the maps drawn by the North Carolina legislature.  The North Carolina Supreme Court will hear arguments on February 2.  Right now, it looks more likely than not that the North Carolina Supreme Court will strike down the map in that state.

The surprise on the list might be Alabama.  Alabama was not on the list of states that we looked at last year.  The failure to do so caused us to miss a change in demography within the state.  For the last several cycles, there has been one minority-majority district in western Alabama (the Seventh District).  In previous decades, the consensus was that — even though approximately one-quarter of the state is African-American — the minority population was too dispersed to creeate a second district that would either be a minority-majority district or close enough to qualify as an influence district.   (Part of the theory of the case is that the new districts dilute the influence of African-Americans in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or is a racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clasue.)  After the last census, however, it appears that by placing Birmingham in one district (the Seventh District) and Montgomery in a separate district in the southern part of the state, you could get two minority-majority districts (or at least two districts that would qualify as influence districts).  For now, the panel of judges hearing the Voting Rights Act case has ordered that Alabama will not be allowed to use the new maps pending a final decision (and has given Alabama thirty days to submit replacement maps or the court will draw maps for this election cycle).  Alabama has asked the Supreme Court to put this ruling on hold, and the Supreme Court has asked the plaintiffs for a response by February 2. Continue Reading...

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