local elections

Utah’s H.B. 75 Proposes A New Strategy to Spread Ranked Choice Voting Across the State

Election Law Society · January 19, 2022 ·

By: Maxfield Daley-Watson

In 2017 Michael Kaufusi won the Provo mayoral race with only 40% of the vote. During the 2016 presidential election, 21% of Utah voters favored an independent candidate, Evan McMullin, as a result Donald Trump won the state with 45.1% of the vote. Instances of candidates winning elections without a majority of the popular vote is not new to American elections, but several states appear to be making a concerted effort to address the problem. One solution that is gaining momentum is the broader implementation of instant run-off elections or ranked choice voting. While procedures vary across jurisdictions, the basic idea is that voters can rank their choice of candidate. If one candidate does not receive a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the lowest number of first-choice votes is eliminated, and the voters who ranked that candidate first have their votes allocated to the candidates they ranked second. The process repeats itself until one candidate has a majority.

Voting Rights and Ancestry in the Virgin Islands

Election Law Society · November 19, 2021 ·

By: Leo Jobsis Rossignol

Thanks to recent media developments, more people are becoming aware of the bizarre fact that, in U.S. territories, citizens cannot vote for the president. However, the vote on the federal level is not the end of the story. There are many further oddities to the voting system in the territories, and we’ll take a moment to explore one of them in this post.

The United States Virgin Islands is one of those territories, and the voting system in place has undergone many changes over time. Originally, those living in the islands had no right to vote or to self-government. Before 1954, the territory was governed by two “municipal” or “colonial” councils (see §5 annotations – prior legislative bodies), one for St. Thomas and St. John, and another for St. Croix (the three main islands), with some positions held by local community leaders. Once a year, or more often if called by the federally-appointed governor, both councils would meet and pass legislation. In the U.S. Virgin Islands Revised Organic Act, passed into law that year, all citizens above the age of twenty-one were granted the right to vote in local elections for both the newly-unicameral legislature and the governor. The law also contained a provision allowing the voting age to be dropped to 18 by popular referendum, which it soon was.

Iowa Voting Legislation: Punitive Restrictions and “Technical Violations”

Election Law Society · October 28, 2021 ·

By: Peter Quinn

Iowans are no strangers to potentially hazardous jobs, as anyone who has ever worked with a thresher can attest. But recent legislation has caused an unlikely profession to rocket up the list of professions with great personal danger attached: election officials. The danger, however, comes not from pointy farm equipment, but rather from the sudden potential for large fines and criminal charges for simple mistakes.