Anyone can listen to this webinar on the California top-two system, by clicking on this link. It was conducted on June 7, two days after the California primary. It was scheduled to start at noon, and it did start at noon, but Steve Peace had been misinformed about the starting time, so he didn’t join until twenty minutes after the event had started. But both had equal time. The event lasted 43 minutes, and was sponsored by Ballotpedia.

Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the webinar is that Steve Peace declared his support for changing top-two to top-four, combined with ranked choice voting. Peace is the lead author of the California top-two system law, and is co-founder of the Independent Voters Project. Peace also said he favors restoring write-in space on general election ballots.

On June 13, the Independent Voters Project announced that it now favors top-four instead of top-two. IVP also wants to use ranked choice voting in conjunction with a top-four system. See this story.

On Thursday, June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Minnesota Voters Alliance v Mansky, 16-1435. Here is the opinion. The vote was 7-2.

Minnesota does not let anyone wear any “political badge, political button, or other political insignia” at the polls. The Court concluded this law is too vague, and too far-reaching, to be consistent with the freedom of speech clause in the First Amendment. The opinion suggests that a better law is California’s law, which only bans “the visible display…of information that advocates for or against any candidate or measure.”

The Minnesota lawsuit had been filed after some voters were told they could not wear buttons saying, “Please I.D. me.” Another plaintiff-voter was told he could not wear a T-shirt mentioning the Tea Party. The lower courts had upheld the law.

The dissent does not defend the Minnesota law, but says the U.S. Supreme Court should have sent the case to the Minnesota state courts to determine whether the state courts might construe the state law to be less restrictive.

On June 13, attorneys for the Nebraska Secretary of State asked a U.S. District Court to rule that the Nebraska petition requirement for non-presidential independent candidates is unconstitutional. The law requires signatures equal to 10% of the registered voters. When both sides agree in such constitutional cases, the judge always respects the unanimous views of the litigants. The case is Bernbeck v Gale, 4:18cv-3073.

The 10% petition requirement was passed in 2016, but not effective until after the 2016 election was over, so it will never have been in effect in any election. The state agrees that the old pre-2016 law will be policy, until the legislature revises the law. The law before 2016 required exactly 4,000 signatures for statewide office and U.S. House. The 2016 law requires approximately 125,000 signatures for statewide office, and approximately 42,000 signatures for U.S. House. It isn’t possible to say exactly how many signatures are required under the 2016 law, because the number of registered voters changes constantly, and the number would be determined as of the date of the registration tally closest to whenever the petition is submitted.

The 2016 bill had passed the legislature unanimously. It was part of an omnibus election law bill, and the 10% provision got no publicity at all. The lawsuit was filed by independent candidate Kent Bernbeck, who now plans to obtain 4,000 valid signatures to run as an independent for Treasurer. The petition deadline is September 1.