In 2004, the esteemed Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote a popular essay lamenting the lack of voter choice in the impending presidential election. Rather than recommending that voters cast ballots for the "lesser of two evils," he admonished voters to abstain from voting altogether.

Alexander Hamilton, a federalist, believed in the Electoral College system. He wrote in Federalist #68 that it was an important feature, allowing us to have confidence in the "choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided." It was intended to be both a safety valve and a feature that would ensure that not only "local darlings" would be voted for the presidency.

Update: Politico reported Friday that Bernie Sanders' campaign has threatened to sue the DNC for suspending its access to the national voter database. 

After the Democratic National Committee became aware that presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign accessed confidential voter information from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, it determined that the Sanders campaign should face consequences.

A citizen initiative to implement ranked choice voting will be on Maine’s ballot in November 2016. It would apply ranked choice voting to Maine elections for governor, U.S. senator, U.S. representative, state senator, and state representative – including both the party primaries and general elections for these offices.

A Bernie Sanders tweet issued Monday inspired actor and television host Mike Rowe, best known as the former host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs and the current host of CNN’s Somebody’s Gotta Do It, to write an open post directed at Sanders on Facebook defending trade jobs and alternatives to college.

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/676142843581374464

Senior editor at The Atlantic, David Frum, titled his article, “The Question That Will Decide the 2016 Election.” The question is this: Will you take away my health insurance?

Early Wednesday morning, Congress announced it had reached an agreement on an omnibus spending bill.

Earlier this year, the Napa County Board of Supervisors considered a proposal that would require local political parties to reimburse county election offices for conducting private central committee elections. However, Napa County election officials recently backed off after party leaders threatened litigation.

Channel 9 in Oklahoma City reported Tuesday that the state's Republican Party decided not to let independent voters participate in its primary elections in 2016. This means that if independent voters want to participate in the first stage of the public election process (i.e. taxpayer-funded election process) the only option they have is the Democratic ballot.

KXLH, a local news station in central Montana, reported Monday that the Montana Republican Party's lawsuit to close its taxpayer-funded primary elections is headed to trial after a ruling from a federal judge. The judge, however, refused to block the use of open primaries in June until the issue is resolved.

KXLH reports: