Hankster News for Independent Voters - January 26

The Top Two open primary system implemented for the first time in 2011is helping people leave the parties in California... Illinois struggles with a closed partisan primary system and Bill Daley (cand for Gov?) promotes top two... University of New Hampshire study of voter attitudes about climate change classifies independents as weather-sensitive... (really?) Read on!

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

Abel Maldonado, author of California's Top Two

• Elias: Voter registrations show parties just don't get it (Thomas D. Elias, Ventura County Star) All of which explains why changes like the "top two" primary system, adopted via ballot initiative in 2010 and used for the first time last year, are so popular. Anything depriving the major parties of some influence or promising more independent politicians will draw significant, often majority, support here.
• Md. voters favor assault weapons ban (DelmarvaNow.com) Slightly more than half of Democrats say stricter gun laws will do more to reduce school violence, and the same 52 percent of Republicans say armed guards are the better option. Independent voters slightly favor stricter laws.

OPEN PRIMARIES
Why Daley's Primary Plan Would Violate Federal Law (By Edward McClelland, NBC Chicago) Bill Daley’s plan to do away with partisan primaries could potentially create three election days in Illinois. Daley said Illinois should consider a system similar to that used in Chicago’s municipal elections -- any candidate who gets 50 percent of the vote in the primary avoids a runoff in the general election. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent, the top two candidates, regardless of party, advance to the general election.

LAST WORD

• Climate Change Beliefs of Independent Voters Shift With the Weather (Science Daily) "We find that over 10 surveys, Republicans and Democrats remain far apart and firm in their beliefs about climate change. Independents fall in between these extremes, but their beliefs appear weakly held -- literally blowing in the wind. Interviewed on unseasonably warm days, independents tend to agree with the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. On unseasonably cool days, they tend not to," Hamilton and Stampone say.
• Among Independent voters, belief in climate change actually shifts with the weather (Robert T. Gonzalez, ion "We come from the future") Temperature effects concentrate among one subgroup, however: individuals who identify themselves as Independent, rather than aligned with a political party. Interviewed on unseasonably warm days, Independents tend to agree with the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change. On unseasonably cool days, they tend not to.