Joe Mathews, a California political analyst, writes here that the California top-two system does not help centrists.
6
Kansas businessman Scott Morgan has announced that he is hoping to organize a new party, for Kansas, to be called “Party of the Center.” He will try to get it on the 2018 ballot. See this story.
Kansas formerly had a law saying a party could only have one word in its name, but the Natural Law Party sued Kansas in 2000 to overturn this law, and the state conceded it could not defend the law, and repealed it.
On October 30, four Philadelphia polling place officials, all Democrats, were indicted for actions they took on March 21, 2017, the day the special legislative election was held in the 197th House district. This is the election in which the only candidate on the ballot was the Republican nominee. Both the Democratic and Green candidates were write-in candidates. The officials are charged with intimidating voters, casting bogus ballots, and certifying false election returns. See this story.
On October 23, the Commission on Presidential Debates filed this amicus curiae brief in defense of its current policy on whom it invites into the presidential debates. This is in the lawsuit called Level the Playing Field v Federal Election Commission, which is pending in U.S. District Court.
A U.S. District Court in Arkansas will hold a trial in Moore v Martin, e.d. 4:14cv-65, on December 12, 2017. The issue is whether the state really needs a March petition deadline for non-presidential independents in order to have enough time to check the signatures.