California journalist and author Joe Mathews here analyzes how the top-two system will work in the California 2018 gubernatorial election. Thanks to Irv Sutley for the link.
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This Salon article by Matthew Rozsa says that the Libertarian and Green Parties have been working together to improve U.S. elections. Despite the expansive title, the only activism mentioned in the body of the article is the recent advance for more inclusive presidential debates. The article might have also mentioned that these parties, along with others, have been working together in ballot access lawsuits. Thanks to Eric Garris for the link.
The Texas bill to ban the straight-ticket device, HB 433, has been re-numbered to HB 25. House bills with numbers of 40 or lower indicate that the leadership of the House considers such bills a priority. Thanks to Mark Miller and Jim Riley for this news.
On February 16, U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia, a Clinton appointee, sanctioned Texas state government for failing to follow court orders to produce certain pieces of evidence. The case is Stringer v Pablos, w.d., SA-16-CA-257. The issue is whether Texas is or is not complying with the federal motor voter law. Plaintiffs say that many individuals register to vote at Department of Motor Vehicle offices, or update their voter registration, and yet those applications don’t get processed.
Plaintiffs asked for certain kinds of evidence from the state, and the state was supposed to produce them by September 24, 2016, but the state got permission to instead submit the documents by January 17. But, that deadline passed without any production of the documents. Here is the order.
The same ballot access improvement bill that was introduced in the Tennessee House last week is also now introduced in the Senate. The Senate bill is SB 770, sponsored by Senator Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet). Both bills lower the number of signatures for a new party from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote, to exactly 5,000 signatures.