On May 24, Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy signed HB 5421, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. Connecticut is the first state to join the compact since before the 2016 election.
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On May 24, the Democratic National Committee and its various national campaign committees filed a lawsuit against the Florida law that determines order of candidates on the ballot. Jacobson v Detzner, n.d., 1:18cv-95. It is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Walker, an Obama appointee. Judge Walker is also the judge who recently ruled that Florida’s process for determining which ex-felons can have their voting rights restored is unconstitutionally arbitrary.
Florida law says the party that polled the most votes in the most recent gubernatorial race will always be listed first on general election ballots. Next are the nominees of the second-biggest party. Then the minor party candidates appear, and at the bottom, the independent candidates. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
A state trial court in Montana is holding a trial in the lawsuit in which the Democratic Party argues that the Green Party petition this year doesn’t have enough valid signatures. Typically the judge only hears the case one day per week. Another round occurred on Thursday, May 24. Here is a short news story about the May 24 hearing.
California State Senator Bob Hertzberg was interviewed by the Independent Voters Network recently. He was asked about California’s top-two system. He said, “It’s challenging for me. I like it because people who before were frozen out of the primary system are allowed to participate, although they don’t participate in as high of numbers. But what’s concerning me is how it’s practiced, because it’s now being manipulated all over the place, where Democrats will get involved in Republican races and vice versa in order to manipulate the outcome and it concerns me a little bit. I’ve given it a lot of thought but I think we may need to look at doing our elections another way.”
Hertzberg was formerly Speaker of the Assembly. In the Senate, he is one of five members of the Senate Elections Committee. Thanks to IVN for doing this interview, which can be read in full here.
The New York Times has this story about California’s top-two system, with emphasis on the point that it sometimes shuts out a major party from having a candidate on the November ballot, even though that major party might have the potential to win that election in another type of system.