Thousands of PA voters told they'd already voted

Thousands of Pennsylvania voters were sent text messages telling them falsely that they had already voted. A spokesman for the PAC that sent the texts has apologized and blamed the misinformation on a "copy editing mistake." 

Pa. residents got phony texts claiming they had voted already. Ignore them, officials say | Phildelphia Inquirer |: Max Marin & Katie Bernard: 

October 28, 2024 - "Thousands of Pennsylvania voters received a text message this weekend that falsely claimed that they had already voted in the Nov. 5 election. 'Records show you voted,' the text read, linking them to an official Pennsylvania website with information about polling places and early voting. 

"But the message did not come from an official government resource or a well-known get-out-the-vote advocacy group. Instead, it was signed by 'AllVote,' a self-proclaimed voter-mobilization program that election officials have repeatedly flagged as a scam to be avoided and ignored.

Courtesy X.

"If 'AllVote' sounds familiar, the name has been linked to other confusion-sowing text campaigns in the lead-up to the election. Montgomery County officials in August warned voters about 'AllVote.com' that was texting registered voters and falsely claiming that they were not registered to vote — part of a scam to 'capture personal, sensitive information from voters in an attempt to exploit them later on,' election commissioners said. Election officials in Arizona and North Carolina raised concerns about text campaigns from an organization with the same name in recent months.

"On Monday, however, a representative from AllVote insisted that it was a misunderstanding. Charlotte Clymer, a contracted spokesperson for AllVote, sent The Inquirer an apologetic statement, describing the texts as a well-intended reminder-turned-disastrous mistake, thanks to a typo committed by staffers.... The organization would not say how many voters were sent the erroneous text.

"The original message was intended to inform Pennsylvania voters that they had cast ballots in 2022 and to direct them toward a verified link to explore their voting options. But 'in 2022' was left out of the script, which led to widespread confusion, the statement said. 'In the heat of the campaign season, workers working long hours simply made a copy-editing mistake,' the statement read.

"A follow-up text was sent to voters who received the initial text message, informing them of the error. But those who replied 'STOP' to the initial message — or marked the sender as spam — may not have received the follow-up, and the organization acknowledged the damage done. 'We deeply apologize for this error, which we understand caused significant confusion, especially amongst voters who have not voted yet but were told they had,' the organization said.... 

"Clymer described AllVote as 'funded by progressive donors aiming to increase voting participation' but declined to provide details about the group’s backers. A political action committee with that name was registered this year. Yet little public information is available about AllVote, and its website lists no founder or staffers. Clymer said the organization does not disclose its backers for fear of being targeted by the far-right."

Read more: https://www.inquirer.com/news/allvote-text-scam-pennsylvania-20241029.html

Say No to NOTA in Libertarian POTUS votes

At one point in this year's Libertarian National Convention, delegates were offered the choice of only one presidential candidate to vote for, versus effectively shutting down the party. That should never happen again.

by George J. Dance

Last weekend I watched some of the Libertarian National Convention on C-SPAN. Political junkie that I am, I was mostly interested in the race for presidential nominee, and was able to tune in during the sixth round of voting, between the last two candidates still on the ballot, Michael Rectenwald (the candidate endorsed by the Mises Caucus [LPMC]) and Chase Oliver (a candidate who had campaigned against the LPMC). During the voting, I got to witness the concession speech of Mike ter Maat, who had been eliminated on the previous ballot, and his attention-grabbing announcement that he was endorsing Oliver and had agreed to be his running mate.

High drama indeed, but what followed was more dramatic still: when the votes were counted, Oliver had pulled into first place, winning over 49%% of the vote; Rectenwald, who had led on every previous ballot, had fallen to second place with 44%; and None of the Above (NOTA) trailed with 44 votes. Thanks to those 44 votes, no candidate had received a majority, and another ballot would be necessary. As Chair Angela McCarcle said, it was a situation seemingly without precedent.     

The events reminded me of my last convention as Ontario Libertarian Party chairman, in 2008. At that convention Sam Apelbaum, who had served as Party Leader for more than a decade, was being challenged by long-time party activist and officer Jean-Serge Brisson. Both had high profiles in the provincial party. Both were also long-time friends of mine, so I scrupulously tried to stay neutral. To make a long story short, the penultimate ballot had a similar result: Brisson was ahead, but short of a majority; Apelbaum was slightly behind; and NOTA made up the rear. Following the customary procedure, I ruled that Apelbaum would be dropped, and there would be one more ballot between Brisson and NOTA.  

The convention exploded; I had most of the room yelling at me to reverse my decision, and to drop the lowest vote-getter (NOTA) instead. The overwhelming consensus was to not to have a ballot with just one candidate, but a final NOTA-less showdown between the leading candidates. Even Brisson agreed with that: he wanted to win, but not that way; he preferred to fight a head-to-head two-man race, and risk losing, rather than win by having his rival removed from the ballot.   

I agreed, too, but I refused to reverse my ruling. Instead, I asked the delegates to overrule it by a two-thirds vote. A two-thirds vote would make it clear that this departure from precedent was the will of the convention (and therefore the will of the party), not simply my own; and would be a decision that would not likely be questioned later (as supporters of both candidates would have voted for it). I even wrote the motion: "To overrule the decision of the chair, suspend the rules, and remove None of the Above from the next ballot." 

That motion was so moved and seconded, and passed overwhelmingly. So the final ballot was a showdown between the two candidates, which Apelbaum narrowly won. That's right: the candidate who would have been eliminated, had we kept NOTA, actually won the vote in a fair contest. So the ruling made a difference to who became leader. More importantly, though, it led to a result that everyone in the room accepted, and no one ever disputed then or later.  

The situation I was watching was uncannily familiar. Once again, Chair McArdle made the same ruling as I did: to drop the candidate running second (Rectenwald). and have a final ballot between the leading candidate (Oliver) and NOTA. Once again, there were copious objections. Some were concerned that, if NOTA won, the party would be unable to run a candidate for POTUS at all. Others demanded that, to save time, Oliver be acclaimed without a vote. But no one suggested the solution we had used in 2008, to drop the lowest vote-getter (NOTA) and have a final runoff ballot between Oliver and Rectenwald. It never even came up. 

Why not? At the time, I assumed it was because of a party bylaw dictating that NOTA would always be on the ballot. I even tweeted to that effect. However, I have learned not to assume things; so I decided to look up the relevant text in the LP's 2020 Bylaws and Convention Rules (as amended in 2022). What I found surprised me. There were only three mentions of NOTA, one in the Bylaws and two in the Convention Rules. The one in Article 10, Section 7, of the Bylaws said: 

7. Votes cast for "None of the Above" in voting on the Party's nominees for President and Vice President, the Party officers, and at-large members of the National Committee, shall be considered valid. Should a majority of the votes be cast for "None of the Above" in the Presidential or Vice-Presidential balloting, no candidate shall be nominated for that office. Should "None of the Above" be selected for any Party office, that position shall be declared vacant and none of the losing candidates for that position may be selected to fill the vacancy for that term of office.

The above section explains what happens should NOTA win a majority. It also declares that votes for NOTA shall always "be considered valid". Which does not mean that NOTA must appear on the ballot; it means that if NOTA receives votes, even as a write-in, those must be counted. Since the party counts all votes cast, including write-ins, that should not be an issue. 

The Convention Rules contain two mentions of NOTA. The first is irrelevant, but it is best to quote it for completeness.  

RULE 7: NOMINATION OF PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

A delegate who collects the required number of nominating tokens so designated may speak up to 5 minutes in favor of voting for None Of The Above.

The second mention of NOTA in the rules, on the other hand, is directly relevant.

RULE 8: ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND NATIONAL COMMITTEE

2a. Each delegate may cast a ballot with a vote for either none-of-the-above or one vote per candidate for any number of candidates. Every ballot with a vote for none-of-the-above or one or more candidates is counted as one ballot cast. A vote for none-of-the-above shall be ignored if the ballot also includes a vote for any other candidate.  

Here at last is a requirement that NOTA appear on every ballot. Notice, though, that it applies only to the election of Officers and National Committee members. The nominees are neither Officers nor members of the National Committee (which is why they are treated separately in the Bylaws). The distinction is not merely semantic. If NOTA wins a majority vote for an Officer or National Committee position, that results in a vacancy; and the National Committee has the power to fill such vacancies later. In contrast, if NOTA wins a vote for either POTUS or VPOTUS, then "no candidate shall be nominated for that office," period.    

Imagine, then, if NOTA had won on the seventh ballot. It would mean the national party could not run a POTUS candidate in 2024. State parties could nominate slates of electors pledged to a candidate, in effect making an endorsement; but the national LP would have to sit this year out. They would not be able to pay for any more ballot access petitioning, for example. In some states where the POTUS candidate did not appear on the ballot, lower-level candidates would also lose their ballot access. As well, the LP would lose almost all of its present ballot access for 2028 and have to start again at zero. In effect, a majority vote for NOTA on that ballot could well have shut down the LP. Delegates were being offered the choice of only one candidate they could vote for, versus effectively shutting down the party. 

So why did more than a third of the convention delegates vote for NOTA on that ballot? Some may have been simply voting against Oliver; after all, by making the deal with ter Maat, he broke his word to his own promised running mate. (Mike ter Maat, too, has been accused of breaking his word, though I have no details on that.) Others might have done so to protest the idea of a one-candidate election. I would speculate, though, that by far the majority of NOTA voters were LPMC members who would have voted for Rectenwald had they not been denied that option. They probably would still have lost (Oliver was only a few votes from a majority), but at least they would have lost in a fair fight rather than by their candidate being yanked off the ballot.  

So, again, why was NOTA left on the ballot and Rectenwald removed? The answer appears to be simply that the option we used in 2008 – eliminating NOTA and leaving the two candidates to fight it out – never occurred to McCardle. Nor did anyone else communicate the idea. Given the context, with McArdle being continually bombarded with parliamentary points of order and privilege and the like, I can see how both could have happened. With the balloting already running hours late, everyone was tired, and not interested in dragging it out further.  

In any case, it is water under the bridge; that should never have happened, but it did. Oliver is now the nominated candidate, and the bad blood from the circumstances of his nomination has already been spilled. However, if the LP survives this campaign year intact, it will by definition be as polarized as ever, meaning that the same situation may well occur in 2028 and beyond. It happened once, but it should never happen again. I wanted to get the solution on record; while I doubt many people will read this, if I did not write it no one would ever read it.    

In elections for POTUS or VPOTUS nominee, convention delegates can remove NOTA from the ballot by a supermajority. And, to prevent one-candidate ballots and the risk of a nominee not being selected, that power should be acknowledged and exercised. 

Election Day for a Libertarian

by George J. Dance

June 2, 2022 - Today did not start well. I got no sleep last night, meaning I was dead tired and starting to nod off this morning, when my wife woke up and reminded me it was Election Day. Just what I needed! But we make it a point to vote in every election. In my younger days, I used to make it a point to run in every election, and while those days are long gone, I can still at least vote. But I was not looking forward to it this time. 

The last federal election was brutal: we joined the tail of a huge line that snaked all over the property, doubling back on itself at least twice. Fortunately, because my wife uses a cane, we were taken pity on after about an hour in line and allowed to cut in. We decided to try to avoid that again by voting early, but we had no idea what to expect. 

I also had no idea whom to vote for. I did not know who was running, or even what constituency I now live in. I knew the Libertarians were running only 15 candidates, so I did not expect one on my ballot. Nor would I vote for one of the BORG – Blue, Orange, Red, or Green – parties. My biggest issue this year was Doug Ford's Covid mandates, and I knew that all four of those parties had supported them. I had learned that there were at least four other parties campaigning against Covid mandates – New Blue, Ontario Party, Ontario People's Front, and Populist Party – but I knew little about what else each of them stood for. Nor did I know which if any of them would have a candidate on my ballot. 

At the polling station, though, I had a couple of pleasant surprises. First, there was no lineup at all; we showed up and walked right in. Second, scanning the ballot, I saw the magic word "Libertarian". So my wife and I happily cast our votes for Serge Korovitsyn. (Later, when I got home, I looked his name up on the party website, and discovered that I still lived in Scarborough Centre.) 

I cannot describe what a relief it was to see the "Libertarian" name on the ballot. Here was a brand name I could trust; not this year's new fad party, but a group that for decades has supported and articulated ideals I could proudly vote for. I do not expect Serge to win, but helping him get a higher vote was the most productive use of my ballot. More generally, I do not expect Libertarians to form the government in my lifetime; but we can get a high enough vote total that the BORG has to start listening to us and co-opting our ideas. 

I would like to thank and salute all of the Libertarian candidates running in this election. Here is a quick list, alphabetically by riding. Highlighted names link to stories about them on the blog. Pictures and full bios for all 15 candidates can be found on the party website, libertarian.on.ca. May there be many more in elections to come.

Brantford-Brant: Rob Ferguson

Davenport: Nunzio Venuto

Don Valley West: John Kittredge

Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock: Gene Balfour

Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands & Rideau Lakes: Mark Snow

London West: Jacques Boudreau

Niagara West: Stefanos Karatopis

Nipissing: Michelle Lashbrook

Orleans: Ken Lewis

Ottawa-Vanier: Coreen Corcoran

St. Catharines: Judi Falardeau

Scarborough Centre: Serge Korovitsyn

Simcoe North: William Joslin

Sudbury: Adrien Berthier

Timiskaming-Cochrane: Eric Cummings

York-Simcoe: Zachary Tisdale

North Korea smuggled in Biden ballots says Stone

Roger Stone claims North Korea boated in votes for Biden 'through a harbour in Maine' | The Independent | - Namita Singh:

December 4, 2020 - "In a new set of unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, Roger Stone, a longtime friend and a former adviser to President Donald Trump on Thursday said that North Korea interfered in the US presidential elections. Appearing on far-right radio programme  The Alex Jones Show, Mr Stones claimed that there was 'incontrovertible evidence' that the votes were brought into the US through Maine. He didn’t present any himself.  

"'I just learned of absolute incontrovertible evidence of North Korean boats delivering ballots through a harbour in Maine, the state of Maine.... If this checks out if law enforcement looked into that and it turned out to be true, it would be proof of foreign involvement in the election,' said Mr Stone who was granted clemency by President Trump in July this year, after being found guilty of lying to Congress and intimidating witnesses during an investigation into election interference.  

"The longtime Republican operative was convicted in November last year on seven counts for lying to lawmakers about communicating with WikiLeaks, tampered with witnesses and obstructed a House intelligence committee investigation into the president's 2016 campaign.

"The office of Maine’s Secretary of State hit out at Mr Stone for using his position as a prominent Trump associate to further such unfounded claims. 'Discussing a rumour such as this only legitimises it,' said Maine Secretary of State spokesperson Kristen Schulze Muszynski, in a statement to Newsweek. 'We have no evidence of any interference in our election, and we have completed our certification of the official results. We take voter fraud and interference allegations seriously and look into any substantiated claims. At this point, this vague rumour has absolutely no validity.'

"While Mr Stone’s allegations are among the more outlandish made about the US election, they are not made in isolation. The president and his legal team have repeatedly claimed the election was rigged and there was widespread fraud, though they have not presented any evidence of this in court and their lawsuits to stall the certification of the 3 November election have largely been rejected."

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/roger-stone-trump-election-north-korea-fraud-b1766084.html

U.S. election results are more of the same

by George J. Dance

NBC News has declared Democratic candidate Joe Biden the President-elect of the United States. Democrats also retained control of the House of Representatives (although they lost seats). They have not as yet taken the Senate; right now they are projected to win 48 seats in the 100-seat upper chamber. However, two seats will be decided in a January run-off election in Georgia, a state Biden won; winning those would give the Democrats control of the Senate (thanks to the tie-breaking vote of the vice-president). That will hand the Democrats a 'hat trick' – control of the presidency and both houses of Congress – a hyuge change from just three years ago, when the Republicans controlled all three.

I am reminded of a French saying – <plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose> – the more things change, the more they stay the same. This hat trick phenomenon is not novel, but has characterized U.S. politics throughout the new century:

• With Bill Clinton's election in 1992, the Democrats controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. The Republicans won both houses in 1994, and retained control for the rest of his presidency. So that....
• With George W. Bush's election in 2000, the Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. They briefly lost their Senate majority, after a GOP Senator switched to the Democrats, but won it back in 2002. They retained control of both houses until 2006, when the Democrats retook both. So that....
• With Barack Obama's election in 2008, the Democrats controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. They lost the House in 2010, and the Senate in 2014. So that....
• With Donald Trump's election in 2016, the Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress.

The players and winners may change, but the pattern stays the same. American voters give one duopoly party complete control of the federal government. They are invariably disappointed by the outcome. They then react to this disappointment by giving the other party the same complete control. They are following a strategy best expressed in this cartoon:

I believe that human ideas are the chief determinants of  human behavior. So what idea(s) can be driving this recurring behavior?

When I was a lad, big "liberal" democratic government was widely seen as the vehicle that would lead us to utopia. That view had begun to fray by 1970, and by the end of the century was nowhere to be found. What happened? Why did utopia never arrive?

There are two different views. The minority, or libertarian, view is that big governments necessarily have structural flaws that prevent them from functioning as promised. The majority or populist view is that big governments work just fine; however, they keep getting captured by bad people who keep perverting them. This populist belief – a faith in governments, combined with a mistrust of the people running them – dominates in U.S. federal politics, and its dominance looks like the best explanation for the cyclical pattern noted above. 

The big difference this time is that the cycle completed in just four years rather than eight. It remains unknown whether that shorter cycle was a mere blip caused by the incumbent president, or whether the cycle has in fact speeded up. My prediction is that the cycle has permanently speeded up, and we will see yet another Republican hat trick in 2024.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Three U.S. libertarians debate whom to vote for

Should libertarians vote for Biden, Jorgensen, or Trump? A Soho Forum Debate | Reason - John Osterhoudt:

July 24, 2020  - "Should libertarians vote for Biden, Jorgensen, or Trump in the next presidential election? That was the topic of an online Soho Forum debate held on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. It featured George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin; Angela McArdle, the chair of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County; and Francis Menton, a retired attorney who blogs at Manhattan Contrarian. The debate was moderated by Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein.

"Arguing that libertarians should vote for Joe Biden was Somin, whose books include Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter and Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom. In support of Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen was Angela McArdle, author of The Communist Cookbook: Delicious Dining for the Modern Marxist. Francis Menton made the case that libertarians should help to re-elect Donald Trump. Menton is a retired partner in the Litigation Department and co-chair of the Business Litigation Practice Group of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in New York."

1st online US POTUS convention begins tonight

Opinion: Libertarians to be first to nominate a presidential candidate via virtual convention | Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Jim Galloway:

May 19, 2020 - "Over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan decided that he wouldn’t make a run for president under the Libertarian Party banner after all.... There is still a reason to keep an eye on Libertarians as they pick their presidential nominee this weekend. But many will consider the 'how' to be more important than the 'who.'

"The pandemic has forced the Libertarian nominating convention into cyberspace — something that Republicans and Democrats alike might find themselves mimicking.... On Friday evening and Saturday morning, 1,045 Libertarian delegates will become the first 50-state, national party to select their nominees for U.S. president and vice president via Zoom, one of several video chat services that have risen up to serve as a substitute for face-to-face contact....

"Libertarians were to gather in Austin, Texas, this Memorial Day weekend. Then the hotel they booked canceled its operations, and Texas officials imposed a 14-day mandatory quarantine on all out-of-state interlopers. They still hope to have an in-person national gathering in July.... But ... Libertarians are under deadline pressures when it comes to the presidential contest that Republicans and Democrats are not. The names of their candidate for president, along with electors, must be submitted far earlier in many states. Which is why, only two weeks ago, the Libertarian National Committee voted to take its presidential nomination process into virtual territory....

"'We’ve been running training sessions on how to run a parliamentary meeting online. We’re throwing every monkey wrench in,' said Dan Fishman, executive director of the Libertarian Party.... Fishman is a software architect – not uncommon among Libertarians, he said. 'We’ve always been a party of technologists. Among software engineers, the dominating preference is libertarianism. So we have a lot of technical people really helping out,' he said....

"Libertarians decided to use the Zoom 'webinar' feature. Delegates will be able to see the principals, but not each other. State party chairs, who as 'panelists' can see the convention/audience, will forward delegation votes and motions. Members of state delegations have set up Slack channels so they can chat among themselves throughout the process.

"The vote for president is expected Saturday. With Amash out – he will remain the first and only member of Congress to bear a Libertarian label – the race is an open one. The only Georgian in the contest is John Monds, who is something of a Libertarian legend. In 2008, in an obscure state Public Service Commission race against Republican Doug Everett, Monds became the first Libertarian in U.S. history to win more than 1 million votes....

"Fishman said he expects Republicans and Democrats alike to be paying attention. 'I know at some point in time people are going to want to talk to us about this. They don’t have quite the same issues that we do, in terms of how their conventions are run, but they are going to have to do something like this,” Fishman said....

"The Libertarian Party has a YouTube channel that will allow you to watch its proceedings, live or delayed. Do tune in, at least for a half-hour or so. You’ll get a glimpse of the skeleton of business that is actually conducted at a political convention – with all the froth and fancy removed."

Read more: https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/opinion-libertarians-first-nominate-presidential-candidate-via-virtual-convention/3wva19YUrooFK3ROU1dbzK/

Libertarians to hold virtual POTUS vote May 22-24

Libertarian Party To Choose Its Presidential Ticket in Virtual Vote Over Memorial Day Weekend
Followed by an in-person convention for other business in Orlando in July | Reason - Brian Doherty:

May 9, 2020 - "The Libertarian Party's National Committee (LNC) decided by a 13–4 vote today, after a tortuous 8-hour Zoom meeting, to divide the party's convention business into two parts. The first will be an online meeting over the same Memorial Day weekend during which the scotched in-person convention was supposed to occur in Austin, Texas. At this online meeting, "nomination and balloting for party candidates for President and Vice-President" will occur. Then a follow-up physical convention will be held in Orlando, Florida, ... July 8–12....

"The [Austin lockdown order in response to the] pandemic led the original convention hotel to cancel the party's reservation. Some expected that last Saturday the LNC would commit to a non-physical option, but instead, they voted to give themselves another 10 days to set up an alternate physical convention to occur before July 15....

"Some worried, during the meeting and in online chatter, that the progress of the law or the pandemic might make the party have to eventually cancel the in-person portion in July later anyway. Many also worry that the combination of the pandemic and the presidential vote having already occurred will encourage lots of would-be delegates to not show up in Orlando even if an in-person event does happen.... Some thought it made the party look criminally irresponsible to encourage 1,000 people to travel across the country to descend on a city, then scatter; some thought it made them look like they were kowtowing to tyrannical fears and supportive of shutting down American business to not do that....

"Daniel Hayes, head of the convention oversight committee, said in a phone interview before the meeting that an in-person convention was vital for media attention; this is likely so, though shifting the presidential vote into the virtual earlier convention likely will drain some media interest from the physical followup. Out of an abundance of caution over whether some entity might later decide the decision of a virtual presidential vote was technically against the rules, the outcome of the Memorial Day online vote will need to be ratified by the July in-person convention.

"LNC Secretary Caryn Ann Harlos was one of the leading voices, at first, for an in-person convention only, but was key in offering a version of the 'presidential vote electronic, rest in person later' compromise.... Harlos thinks, though, that since their very purpose as a party is to run national candidates, a compromise that allows that and only that business to be done electronically was acceptable, as waiting much longer would conflict with certain state's ballot access deadlines.... The matter is important because some state ballot petitioning rules require the actual named candidate, so the later the candidate is named, the harder it will be to meet those requirements.

"Joe Bishop-Henchman, a candidate for LNC chair this year and a leader in the 'online presidential vote' faction said in a phone interview before the convention that he worried if the party didn't settle its presidential candidate question sooner rather than later that some state party affiliates might see it necessary to 'defy [the national party] and go it alone' ... but he thinks the compromise reached today will 'prevent that from happening, the danger of different presidential tickets in different states.'"

Read more: https://reason.com/2020/05/09/libertarian-party-to-choose-its-presidential-ticket-in-virtual-vote-over-memorial-day-weekend/

Amash unanimous 1st choice in Maine LP primary

by George J. Dance

Only 9 people voted in the Libertarian Party of Maine's presidential preference primary. But those 9 voters have completely upended the Libertarian Party (LP) nomination race, and perhaps the U.S. presidential race itself.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the government responses, have caused tremendous damage – and the LP has not been immune, with primaries and state conventions being cancelled or postponed right and left. The LP of Maine, too, postponed its April convention: at this time they hope to run a full convention in July. But July would be too late to elect state delegates to the national convention, still scheduled for May 22 (although that date may change).

So in April  the state party also held a special convention on Zoom, with a limited agenda focussing on selecting the  national delegates.

Following the election of the 8 delegates (and 3 alternates), the Maine LP held its presidential preference primary. A party spokesman explained to me via Facebook that they tried to give the voters maximum choice: "The ballot was a very inclusive one. Every candidate listed on the national party's presidential candidate page was included along with all candidates on Wikipedia's page on the race for the LP nomination. This included the candidates who had withdrawn months ago, and prospective candidates." Only 2 candidates – one who publicly quit the LP, and one who is seeking another party's nomination – were excluded.

That made Maine's the first primary ballot to include Michigan Congressman Justin Amash. Amash, the only member of Congress to identify as a libertarian, had long been touted as a presidential candidate, and had always left the possibility open. In February, he paused his re-election campaign to seriously consider an LP presidential run; and was still doing so in April.

While Amash was playing Hamlet, libertarian thinktank founder Jacob Hornberger was building an impressive narrative of wins in the LP race. By the Maine convention he was the clear frontrunner, having won 7 of the previous 10 primaries and caucuses.  By April, given the limited opportunities to campaign, it was doubtful that any other declared candidate could beat Hornberger. But could Amash? The Maine primary, the first time both Hornberger and Amash had appeared on a ballot together, would be the first test.

The Maine LP used an Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)-style ballot: voters were asked to vote for 5 candidates (corresponding to 5 rounds of voting at a convention), and rank them from 1st to 5th choice (to correspond with each round). A voter with less than 5 preferences could either vote None of the Above, or leave the line(s) blank (not vote), for the remainder. There was also an option to write in names not printed on the ballot. Nine LP members voted for 5 choices each, making 45 possible votes.     

The Maine LP released the vote result on April 23. Of the  37 votes cast, NOTA received the most (11), simply because  anyone could vote for NOTA more than once. However, applying the method of IRV – where voting proceeds only until one candidate gets a majority – yields a different  winner. For the result of the first-choice count (corresponding to a first round of voting) was:

• Justin Amash - 9
• Jacob Hornberger - 0
• Everyone else - 0

As the Maine LP announced on its webpage: "A candidate who has yet to even declare his candidacy, Justin Amash. was the first choice of all those who responded." (The Party has since expanded the poll to include all Maine LP sustaining members, which is presumably why the result has not been posted on Wikipedia).

Within the week, Amash entered the presidential race, launching an exploratory committee on April 28. On April 29, Hornberger wrote on his blog: "Today, this is a brand new race for the LP presidential nomination, one in which – I make no bones about it – Amash is now the clear favorite."

Once again, it was just 9 votes. The 2020 race for the LP nomination has not turned into a coronation of Amash. But it is now no longer a coronation of Hornberger, either. For the first time, it has become a real contest worth paying close attention to. 

Strange doings in New Hampshire

Political Animal readers may have seen my facebook post of last night on the January 11 Libertarian Party of New Hampshire (LPNH) Presidential Preference Primary results:

The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire recently held a "ranked choice" preference vote for 2020 presidential nominee; but the results show only that they don't know how to count a "ranked choice" ballot. "According to the party’s announcement, 44 votes were cast.... Of those, 26 voted for Vermin Supreme. The next highest was 22 voting for Kim Ruff. Jo Jorgensen got 17 votes, Dan “Taxation is Theft” Behrman got 13. Jacob Hornberger got 9, NOTA got 13 (which stands for None of the Above), Sam Robb got 8 votes, Arvin Vohra got 6, Mark Whitney got 6, Lincoln Chafee got 4, and then 16 got under 10 percent of the votes and weren’t listed." That makes 144 [should have been 140] votes, or 100 more than were cast. It looks like the scrutineers simply counted every ranking filled out for a candidate - first choice, second choice, last choice, whatever - as one vote.

I received a number of comments, including one on the LPNH facebook page explaining how the votes were counted. I did the required reading, and wrote my results up as an article.

However, I submitted the article to online magazine Nolan Chart, in the hope that it would get more exposure; and therefore I cannot print it here as well. I urge all my readers to go to the Nolan Chart site and give it a read.

Strange Doings in New Hampshire
https://www.nolanchart.com/strange-doings-in-new-hampshire

Here is a look at Vermin Supreme, the primary winner:

New York City adopts ranked-choice voting

Ranked-Choice Voting, Once Seen as a Novelty, Gains Ground Nationally | Fortune - Mike Hofman:

November 6, 2019 - "Voters in New York City have revised the city charter to adopt ranked-choice voting, a new way of deciding who has won an election that is steadily gaining in popularity across the country....

"Ranked-choice voting allows voters to select a favorite candidate, and then a second-favorite candidate, and so on. In New York City, the plan calls for allowing residents to rank their top five choices. If no candidate achieves a majority of the vote after the first round of counting, first-place votes for candidates at the bottom of the heap are set aside and those voters’ second-place votes are distributed among the top candidates, and so on, until a candidate achieves a majority....

"[T]he system reduces the need for arduous runoff elections, and ... it is particularly well-suited for municipal elections in which a diverse, multi-candidate field — often from within a single political party — results in a narrow win for a candidate with a strong base of support in, say, a particular neighborhood, but sometimes little appeal beyond that base....

“'First across the post' races also create weird, specific tensions with third-party options. On the one hand, a third-party candidate who has a passionate following nevertheless has a hard time breaking through because some group of voters will opt for a less dynamic but more 'electable' candidate — the lesser-of-two-evils approach to democracy that can feel so demoralizing. On the other hand, a third-party campaign can be used as a spoiler in a tight race, taking just enough votes away from a candidate whose views are broadly preferred by a slim majority of the electorate.

"In the close Kentucky governor’s race, for example, a third-party Libertarian Party candidate won 28,000 votes, about 23,000 votes more than the apparent, 5,000-vote margin of victory of Democrat Andy Beshear over Republican Matt Bevin. It’s impossible to know which alternative those Libertarian voters would have picked as a second choice, but it is well within the realm of possibility that they would have given Bevin the slim margin he needed to win a second term....

"New York City joins 20 other cities nationwide in adopting ranked-choice voting—many of them liberal bastions such as San Francisco, Berkley, and Oakland, Calif.; Santa Fe, N.M.; Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.; and Cambridge, Mass.

"Maine is also a laboratory for ranked-choice voting, having implemented it by voter initiative in 2016 for federal elections. Last year, the state’s hotly-contested second congressional district provided a test case in ranked-choice voting outcomes. The incumbent Republican congressman, Bruce Poliquin ... filed a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of ranked-choice voting, ... asking the courts to order a do-over race. A federal judge who had been appointed to the bench by President Trump flatly rejected Poliquin’s argument and call for a new election."

Read more: https://fortune.com/2019/11/06/new-york-ranked-choice-voting-nyc/
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An American libertarian's letter to Santa

Libertarian details wishes in a letter to Santa Claus | Columnists | lancasteronline.com - Roy Minet:

December 23 -
"Dear Santa,

"We know you’re very busy and you get lots of requests, so we’ll try to keep our list short. Here are a few of the things we’d most like for Christmas.

"First, we’d really like more fiscal responsibility. It’s troubling that the national debt is now nearly $22 trillion, which is more than the whole gross domestic product of our country for a year. Interest payments on this debt will exceed $334 billion this year.... This is a concern for the solvency of our nation. Moreover, it is morally reprehensible to shift the burden of our current flagrant spending onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.... What kind of parents would max out all their credit cards and then leave that debt for their kids to pay off?....

"We definitely are in favor of maintaining a strong national defense, but we would like an end to all the interminable undeclared wars. Just one of them — Iraq — has cost more than $2 trillion so far. At least as deplorable and morally unacceptable is our armed forces’ continuing loss of life and limb....

"Speaking of wars, we would also like an end to the war on drugs. This expensive war has been a failure by any measure and, quite likely, has exacerbated a serious problem. A previous misguided attempt at prohibition (of alcohol) was a similar disaster. That mistake was recognized after a decade of turmoil and reversed. Purely on a practical basis, there’s no reason to continue the war on drugs....

"If you can do it, we’d be extremely happy to have some election reforms. Our government — at the state and federal level — has fallen under the control of a class of establishment career politicians. They’ve certainly voted themselves extravagant pay, benefits and perks. They’ve rigged our elections to help themselves stay in power. As a result, 90 percent of incumbents are re-elected. And there is only one name on our ballots for far too many 'races.'

"Gerrymandering is the most obvious and easiest thing to fix. Next would be to greatly reduce the artificial barriers politicians have erected to keep their competition off the ballot. Another important change would be to replace the plurality voting method — the worst possible method — with a good ranked-choice method.... We should warn you, though, that career politicians are very adept at making sure that such reforms never make it through the legislative process....

"Finally, we’d most like to have world peace. Our definition of world peace would be that every individual’s rights to life, liberty and property be secured at all times. Everyone would be free to live and let live. Don’t tread on anyone. Minimize the use of force on honest and peaceful people."

Read more: https://lancasteronline.com/opinion/columnists/libertarian-details-wishes-in-a-letter-to-santa-claus/article_5a5f15ae-0493-11e9-b240-0ff27458c154.html
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Ranked voting survives legal challenge in Maine

Federal Judge Upholds Maine's Ranked-Choice Voting - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

December 13, 2018 - "In the November midterms, incumbent Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin won the first round of votes against Democratic challenger Jared Golden. But he did not get more than 50 percent of the votes.... Under Maine's new election rules, put into place by the voters, a candidate for Congress must get a majority of the votes....

"Maine voters are asked to rank the candidates in order of preference. If no candidate gets a majority vote, the candidate who received the least votes is eliminated [and] for those who voted for the eliminated candidate, their second choice is counted.... In Maine, ... that pushed Golden ahead to narrowly win with 50.6 percent of the vote. Poliquin sued to try to stop the vote count, challenging the constitutionality of ranked-choice voting.

"U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker, appointed by President Donald Trump, roundly rejected Poliquin's suit.... Poliquin ... had argued that Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution calls for plurality voting. But it does not.....

"Walker also rejected an argument ... that the system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.... The plaintiffs only voted for Poliquin and declined to rank the other candidates, which ... [t]hey argued ... meant that their votes had less 'weight'.... This made little sense and the judge rejected it. They chose not to rank the other candidates, but the option was presented. And during each round, each person's vote counted only once....

"So it looks like Maine's ranked-choice voting system is here to stay..... Maine voters actually wanted to use it for ... statewide races and state lawmaker races too. But ... to comply with the voter-approved ballot initiative, lawmakers need to amend the state's Constitution. Right now state Republicans have been resistant. We'll see if this ruling gets them to accept the public's will."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/12/13/federal-judge-upholds-maines-ranked-choi
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A libertarian case for voting

The Libertarian Case for Voting - Reason.com - Ed Krayewski:

November 30, 2014 - "Tomorrow I'll be voting in my 39th consecutive election. When I vote for candidates, they rarely win. The ones that do have without exception disappointed. Many elections don't have any candidates I want to vote for. So I spoil my ballot.

"There are a lot of [bad] reasons to vote.... Ultimately your vote matters very little. It's almost certainly never going to tip an election. Many elections (think 2012) don't really have a plausible conclusion that doesn't suck for the American people. Nevertheless voting is important, because in a democratic system the absence of a vote enforces the illusion of the consent of the governed.

"Most people don't vote. The U.S. population is about 316 million. About 235 million are adults.... About 130 million Americans voted in the 2012 presidential election, nearly 66 million for President Obama.... Almost all of the 49 percent of voting Americans who didn't vote for Obama voted for the Republican, Mitt Romney. That still leaves at least 78 million Americans eligible to vote who didn't vote for Obama or Romney, more than the vote total either major party candidate received....

"It's impossible to say how many of those 78 million Americans, pressed to vote, would vote Democrat or Republican..... Millions of Americans ... may never vote precisely because they don't like Democrats or Republicans. A lot of people don't know they're libertarians. A lot of libertarians don't believe in voting. And not every Libertarian candidate will appeal to all libertarians. Certainly not every adult eligible to vote will have a candidate that matches up even imperfectly with their own views....

"No one person's decision to purchase or not purchase an Apple phone over an Android phone will make or break Apple.... Yet, in the aggregate, market participants set prices. Even the non-participants, those who decide not to buy, help set the price.... Not purchasing a smartphone deprives no one of anything but you of a smartphone....

"In politics, on the other hand, not voting becomes part of the illusion of consent. After all, non-voters aren't starting insurgencies or calling for revolutions.... The consent required for government to exert more control over you is far less robust than, say, the consent demanded of college students in California, or, actually, in any other situation where consent is required.

"Voting is a right, not a privilege. It's also not something you have to exercise. Not voting doesn't diminish anyone's credibility in criticizing the system, because voting doesn't ensure a specific result. But the regularity of not-voting helps promote the idea that the system is acceptable, just as much as the regularity of voting for the major parties does. Breaking that cycle can help break politics' control over us."

Read more: https://reason.com/archives/2014/11/03/the-libertarian-case-for-voting
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Maine adopts ranked-choice voting for midterms

Maine Voters Prepare to Rank Their Congressional Candidates to Choose Winners - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

October 23, 2018 - "In just a couple of weeks we're all going to see an election experiment that could perhaps change the way votes are counted.... November's election will be Maine's first use of ranked-choice voting to determine the winners of three elections — for one U.S. senator and two U.S. House seats. And with the way polls for at least one race are going, independent-minded voters are going to affect the outcome in a manner that can actually be tracked.

"In ranked-choice voting, people are asked not to just select one candidate for office, but to rank the candidates by order of preference. If there are four candidates, for example, you can choose the candidate you prefer the most and also rank the others second, third, and fourth....

"[F]or a candidate to win, he or she must have a majority of the votes, not just a plurality. If no candidate wins a majority of the vote, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated from the race.... The ballots are tallied again, and for those who voted for the eliminated [candidate], their second choice is counted instead. And so it goes, until one candidate has a majority....

"The point of ranked-choice voting is to try to enfranchise voters by making it possible to vote for third-party or independent candidates without actually 'throwing their vote away.' Proponents of ranked-choice voting see it as a tool of making candidates reach out to a larger pool of voters rather than just playing to their voting bases.... Ranked-choice voting doesn't necessarily make it easier for third-party candidates to win, but it makes their voices and their voters harder to ignore.

"Several cities in the United States have ranked-choice voting for local races... Maine, as a result of a couple of state ballot initiatives, will be implementing it for the first time....

"Now attention is focused on Maine's 2nd Congressional District, where incumbent Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin is fending off a challenge from Democrat Jared Golden, and two independents [with] almost no chance of winning, getting less than 10 percent of the vote between the two of them in most polls. But the polls also show pretty much a dead heat between Poliquin and Golden.... Therefore, what's going to determine the outcome of this race may very well be who voters for the two independents selected as their second choice — or even their third.....

"[I]ndependent voters will determine the outcome of the race in a way that doesn't make them 'spoilers'.... They can vote for their favorite and then select the Democrat or the Republican as their second choice. Or they may not. Voters aren't required to rank their choices. It's an option....

"Partisans often whine that third-party voters end up helping their opponents. On a fundamental level, this is political entitlement nonsense that improperly treats voters like they belong to the political parties instead of the other way around. But it's also often not entirely true. Polling often shows third-party voters split between the main parties. In this election, we'll get to be able to track where independent votes actually go."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/10/23/maine-voters-prepare-to-rank-their-congr
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