North Carolina holds a statewide election this November for Justice of the Supreme Court. There are three candidates, two Republicans and one Democrat. This Charlotte Observer article explains how a legislative change this year changed the order of the candidates in this race. The old law would have put the solitary Democrat first on the ballot. The new law, combined with a bit of bad luck in the random drawing, puts her last.

Although party labels appear on the November ballot for judicial races, there are no party nominees, which is why there are two Republicans in the race.

On July 6, the Michigan Supreme Court said it will hear the case over whether an initiative to set up a nonpartisan redistricting commission can be on the ballot. Everyone agrees the initiative has enough valid signatures, but the Secretary of State wants to keep it off the ballot on the grounds that it improperly includes more than a single subject, and that it is a constitutional revision instead of just an amendment. The state court of appeals had ruled that the initiative should be on the ballot. The hearing will be July 18. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the news.

The Daily News of New York city has this editorial about the June 26 congressional primary for the Reform Party in two districts. The editorial has objective information about the small number of voters who participated. It says the state law should be changed to make it more difficult for voters to obtain a primary in which write-ins are tallied. It ignores the much better idea, which the Reform Party has been trying to publicize, that the law should be changed to let small qualified parties nominate by convention instead of primary.

That idea was endorsed in 1951 by the National Civic League, in its publication, “A Model Direct Primary Law”, authored by Professor Joseph P. Harris. At the time he was considered the nation’s leading expert on election administration. The idea has been adopted in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia (for statewide office only), Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. In addition, many other states let new qualified parties nominate by convention. And Alabama, South Carolina, and Virginia let all parties, large and small alike, decide for themselves whether to nominate by primary or convention.