Maps of Current State Houses and Senates

[jimrtex]

One potential change this year could come from a constitutional referendum petition circulating in IL. The main purpose is to enact legislative term limits, but in order to get around previous court decisions restricting the form of petitions, it also would change the IL House to 123 and the Senate to 41.

Was that the size before they changed the elections for representatives?  There were 3 representatives per senate district.

[jimrtex]

I've never realized until now that a California state senator represents a larger constituency than a Californian serving in the United States House of Representatives.

Somewhat impressive.  

Same with Texas.

I'd argue that both states should expand their state senate's to correct that, but interesting regardless.

Or you could argue that their Senates are consistent with typical sizes in other states, but the population is too large, and they should be divided into smaller states.

The 1876 Texas constitution provided that the senate should have 31 senators and never more.  The house could vary, but there was a maximum of 150, and a lower limit based on population per representative (IIRC 16,000).

In 1999 the constitution was amended to specify 31 and 150.  This was done along with removing the unconstitutional apportionment provisions.   I assume they realized that the limit of 31 not being changed, could be changed.

An advantage of having a small senate, and a large house, is that there is a clear distinction between the temperament and style of the two chambers.  It really doesn't make that much sense to have a bicameral legislature with a small difference in size, particularly for states like Washington and Arizona where legislators are elected from identical districts.

[jimrtex]

2014 State Senates:

R Pickups: CO, ME, NV, VA, WV

What shade is used if one candidate (or one party in this case) has exactly 60%?  Because if the disputed recount result in Senate District 25 holds in Maine (and given that the new, Republican State Senate will be the final arbiter, it probably will), the Maine Senate will be 21-14 R.

I would use 60% to 64.999...% or 60% to 69.999% or whatever.  You would ordinarily characterize a party as having support in the low 60s, whether it was 63% or 60.1%.  It seems pretty arbitrary to require one additional vote.

The House will be 79-58 D, with 4 Unenrolled (Independent) candidates being elected (two of them are designated as Unenrolled and two as Independent, which seems silly to me).

Shouldn't that be 79-68-4?

The Maine Legislature website shows 2 Independent (Campbell and Chipman), 2 Unenrolled (Evangelos and Brooks).

The Secretary of State candidate's list for this election shows, Campbell, Chipman, and Evangelos as Independent, and Brooks as Unenrolled.  Campbell, Chipman, and Evangelos were re-elected, while Brooks was defeated.   An additional "Independent", Sukeforth in HD 95 was elected.

I could not find anything in the SOS guidance for non-party candidates, other than the candidates could provide a description of their party or platform.  My guess is that the candidates chose "Independent", as it is more modern sounding.  Perhaps Brooks was more of a traditionalist who didn't think that "Unenrolled" had a pejorative cast to it, but Evangelos seemed to switch.   Maybe there had been a concern about a conflict with "Green Independent", since you can't use the name of a qualified party in your description.

The combined House and Senate, which elects the Attorney General, Secretary of State and State Treasurer (also State Auditor, but only in Presidential Election years), will be either 93 D, 87 R and 4 U/I (exactly half D) or 94 D, 86 R and 4 U/I (narrowest possibly D majority), depending on which Senate District 25 candidate serves in the opening day of the Legislature on December 3 (after which the Legislature recesses until January, although some committees may meet later in December).

93D-89R-4I or 94D-88R-4I (no?)

Recent practice has been for the apparent winner in the election night count (so in this case, the Democrat) to serve on Opening Day, but in those recent cases there were enough disputed ballots to affect the outcome.  In this case, the disputed ballots aren't enough to change the outcome (and weren't all potential votes for the D in any case), but the 21 "phantom ballots" (as some Democrats are calling them; see the article) would, and they all went for the Republican.  There were also apparently 10 ballots that were counted on election night in a couple of towns that weren't there for the recount.  And I know that on the day of the recount people had to go down to Westbrook to pick up a box of ballots that was still there.  So it's a mess, basically.

But IRV will fix all this

The Phantom Ballots of Long Island

At least three of the 4 Unenrolled/Independent State Representatives are on the liberal side of the spectrum (although one is a former Green from Portland whose chief competition every two years comes from Democrats), and they could help shore up the Democratic Constitutional Officers, but defections are not unheard of.  It's a secret ballot, although I've read in the past that Legislators are given ballots with the name of each candidate on them and that Democratic leadership in 2004 (when the Democrats had narrow majorities in each chamber) collected (individually, the writer seemed to suggest) the unused ballots of Democratic Legislators to guard against defections.  Even there, I've read that the Republicans would have won at least one of the four positions if some Republican legislators facing long drives north hadn't left early (in another contest, I read that some Democrats would have defected if not for the Republican absences that made it so the Democrat would have been elected regardless).  I did read about the collection of unused ballots by Democratic leadership and would have been Republican victories in 2004 on a conservative web forum, however.

Governor LePage talked up Elliot Cutler for Attorney General after his reelection, but I'm not sure if Cutler is interested.  Attorney General Janet Mills may not be worried, as Secretary of State Matt Dunlap was cited as saying that while he thought the Democrat should be seated on opening day, the Attorney General thought the Republican should.  Not that elected (including indirectly elected) officials necessary act out of self interest but it does suggest that the AG feels she has 94 solid votes even without the District 25 Senator.  I figured the Secretary of State, a "northern Maine" (Old Town) Democrat who hunts and was actually head of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine for about a year after he lost his position after the 2010 Republican takeover, was the safest of the three Democrats facing a Legislative election on December 3, but maybe he isn't.  We'll just have to wait and see.

Reading the Maine Constitution, it appears that the Governor has the authority to examine returns prepared by the Secretary of State, and issue summons to the senators-elect and representatives-elect.

In Florida, where there is a messed up House race, the SOS made a report to the House (operating under temporary rules) as to the election results.  A motion was made to accept the results for all of the districts except that one as prime facie evidence of election, which then let the members-elect take the oath of office.   After that, they made a formal decision to reject thre results completely, which caused the seat to be vacant and a special election called.

I don't see anything in the Maine Constitution about making all the decisions on the first day of the session.   The constitution requires convening on the first Wednesday in December.  There is nothing about skipping town for the next month.

[jimrtex]

Here's a combination of the two (weighted 50% each on percentage of R/D)

Strongest D's are HI and DC (>90%), MA and RI (>80%), and Maryland (>70%)
Strongest R's are UT, WY, and ID (>80%), and OK, KS, SD, ND, TN, and IN (>70%)

DC should only be 80% D.  City council is 13D and 2 I.

Oh, thanks. I just assumed they were all D because... well, its DC.

There are seats on the DC Council that are essentially reserved for non-Democrats.  I'm having a hard time figuring out whether this is actually in statute or whether it's just a consequence of the primary system DC has.

The district charter limits any party from nominating more than one candidate for the two at-large seats that are open at each election.  There are four at-large seats, two elected every 2 years, for a four-year term.

So on the ballot this year, there was one Democrat, one Libertarian, one Statehood Green, one Republican, and 11 independents.  Voters could vote for no more than two candidate.

24% of total votes were undervotes, which could mean that 24% of voters skipped the race, or 48% only voted for one candidate, or somewhere in between.  For example 10% skipped the race, and 28% voted for only a single candidate.

The Democrat was easily elected with votes from 48% of voters, and one independent was elected with votes from 24% of voters.   The Green finished 6th (behind 4 independents), the Republican 9th, and the Libertarian 14th (ahead of one independent).

[jimrtex]

The House will be 79-58 D, with 4 Unenrolled (Independent) candidates being elected (two of them are designated as Unenrolled and two as Independent, which seems silly to me).

Shouldn't that be 79-68-4?

Yes.  I've fixed it.

The combined House and Senate, which elects the Attorney General, Secretary of State and State Treasurer (also State Auditor, but only in Presidential Election years), will be either 93 D, 87 R and 4 U/I (exactly half D) or 94 D, 86 R and 4 U/I (narrowest possibly D majority), depending on which Senate District 25 candidate serves in the opening day of the Legislature on December 3 (after which the Legislature recesses until January, although some committees may meet later in December).

93D-89R-4I or 94D-88R-4I (no?)

Right again.  I don't know what was up with me that night.

Interesting results for the State Treasurer race.  I could not find any vote counts, other than it was by secret ballot.

Phantom Ballots of Long Island

The results for SD 25 are very curious.   It turns out that the 171 ballots were tallied and bundled in batches of 50, with 21 in a final odd-lot batch.

During the recount, an additional 21 ballots were found bundled with the 21 ballots tallied on election night.  It does not appear that the 21 additional ballots were identified, but rather simply that Manchester received 21 more votes than shown on the tally sheet.

Since they were hand-counted paper ballots, I'd expect that a forensic investigation might be able to determine which ballots are new.

Long Island is the only town in the district that hand counts ballots.   But there were some other mysteries, such as lost ballots from Westbrook, and 3 vote switches on machine-counted ballots in Gray.

[jimrtex]

Phantom Ballots of Long Island

The results for SD 25 are very curious.   It turns out that the 171 ballots were tallied and bundled in batches of 50, with 21 in a final odd-lot batch.

During the recount, an additional 21 ballots were found bundled with the 21 ballots tallied on election night.  It does not appear that the 21 additional ballots were identified, but rather simply that Manchester received 21 more votes than shown on the tally sheet.

Since they were hand-counted paper ballots, I'd expect that a forensic investigation might be able to determine which ballots are new.

Long Island is the only town in the district that hand counts ballots.   But there were some other mysteries, such as lost ballots from Westbrook, and 3 vote switches on machine-counted ballots in Gray.

The mystery has been solved, it seems.  The "phantom ballots of Long Island" did not exist (as different ballots from already counted ones).  The 21 ballots were from a bundle of 50 that was segregated by vote in that Senate race during the recount (as happens when you're counting the ballots in a recount) but were not put back with that bundle but instead went into another bundle (the one left over, I think) and were counted again.  In the session of the Senate Election Committee yesterday, all of Long Island's ballots were counted and the results matched the election night tally perfectly.  (In some article I read one of the ballot counters in Long Island (not the town clerk but an assistant vote counter) be quoted as saying, "Someone owes my town an apology.")  Cathy Manchester (R) has resigned her... well I guess her provisional seat.  The full Senate will still have to vote to seat Cathy Breen (D) when it reconvenes in January, although that seems like a done deal now.

I'm not sure if any of the other issues were addressed, which is a bit surprising as Breen's margin with after the Long Island fix should only be 10 and there were some 9 disputed ballots (not all of which were potential Breen votes and probably not all potential Manchester votes either) and the missing ballots in Cumberland and Manchester and that machine issue in Gray.  If the Republicans conceded with those issues still outstanding, it makes me wonder if a Republican vote counter during the recount might have deftly and purposefully moved those 21 ballots into a new pile when no one else was looking, and conceding was part of a quid pro quo to prevent further investigation.  The official word is that it was just human error though.

The finger pointing from party leaders, bloggers and even our magnanimous and non-partisan Governor (what's the rolleye icon?) has continued, however, and the Secretary of State is doing damage control.

Anyway, the Maine Senate should be colored >50% R, as it currently is (or >55% R if a 5% gradient is used), not >60% R.  The tally in the Maine Senate will be 20 R and 15 D.  The Maine House, again, is 79 D, 68 R and 4 Unenrolled/Independent.

That must have been fun, since they re-recounted the odd-lot batch first.  Someone from the SOS office would probably have smiled that there were 42 ballots, just like we said, and then sneered at the Long-Islanders.  They then opened the box which should have had 50 ballots, and it only had 29.

During the recount, they might have been trying to speed things up, opening up one bundle while counting the previous.  The bundles from Long Island were probably sorted.  You count paper ballots by sorting them by candidate and then count the number of ballots, while double checking that the sort was correct.  You might tally them during the sort, as someone looked at a ballot, and announced "Breen" or "Manchester" they would place the ballot in a stack, and someone else could put a tally mark.   You then count the Breen stack, while checking that they are indeed Breen ballots.

So you might have the stack of 21 Manchester ballots, and someone said something about 21 ballots, and they were confused with the odd lot.

Many years ago, another branch of a company I worked for was expecting a shipment of seismic tapes, worth several 1000 dollars.   They were delivered to our office, and a shipping clerk signed the receipt.   The same day, someone found some boxes with empty tape canisters in a basement.  They were brought up to our office, and the shipping clerk told someone to move "them" into a storeroom.  "Them" included the boxes with the newly recorded tapes, and the boxes with empty tape canisters.  The boxes with the empty canisters were lighter and placed on top.

The other branch started tracking down their missing tapes.  They had the delivery clerk confirm that he had delivered them to our branch.  He had the signed receipt.  The shipping clerk said that there were some boxes with empty canisters.   We checked the storeroom and there were the boxes with empty canisters.

A few days later, after this had been escalated up to HQ. I checked the storeroom one last time.  It needed some rearranging, so I moved the boxes with the empty canisters.   And then lifted up the box below, expecting it to also be quite light.  Ugh!  It wasn't as light.  It was full of tapes.  New tapes that weren't supposed to be there!

A year or so later, our paychecks were mistakenly sent to the other branch.  Fortunately, they decided not to exact revenge.

[jimrtex]

Didn't the Democrats take the Alaska House through a coalition or something?

According to ballotpedia the Republicans have 21 to Democrats 17 and 2 Independents, so at maximum its 21/19, unless they're wrong, then I'll correct.

In the past Alaskan Native Democrats from the interior have caucused with the Republican Party. Some (all?) of these were defeated in the primary.

Three Republicans representatives have announced that they will form part of the "majority" caucus, which along with the two independents will give the "majority" a 22-18 advantage. Of the three Republicans, one was given the chair of the House Rules Committee, and the other chair of the House Finance Committee.

A Democratic senator has joined the majority caucus, giving them overwhelming control of the Senate.

If you flip the Alaska House, you also have to flip the Washington senate.

[jimrtex]

After 2016

State Senates

In Hawaii, EVERY state senator is a Democrat, literally 100% control. The next closest state to that is Wyoming, which is 90% Republican (27 to 3). Connecticut and Delaware have Democratic control due to their Governor/Lt Governor, but the numbers of Republicans and Democrats are tied.

D Pickups: NV, WA
R Pickups: IA, MN

State Houses

D Pickups: NV, NM
R Pickups: KY

Is Illinois a midwestern state?