On December 9, a U.S. District Court Judge in Colorado set a hearing date in Baca v Hickenlooper. This is the Colorado lawsuit over whether the Secretary of State can remove presidential electors who say they won’t vote for their party’s presidential nominee. The hearing is at 3 p.m. in Denver federal courthouse, room A-1002. The plaintiff presidential electors are seeking a court order to safeguard their positions as electors. The state’s brief is due by Friday, December 9, at 5 p.m.

UPDATE: the Colorado Republican Party has asked to intervene in the lawsuit, and the state has asked for permission from the court to file an oversized brief.

According to this story, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, will try to persuade the 2017 session of the legislature to ease the deadline for parties to switch parties. Current law forces voters who are registered in one party, but who want to vote in the primary of another party, to change more than six months before the primary. Schneiderman wants to ease the deadline to 25 days before the primary (if the change is submitted by postal mail) and 10 days before the primary, for individuals who appear in person at the voter registration office.

Canada is seriously looking at electoral reform. Fair Vote Canada favors proportional representation for House of Commons elections. Vote Canada recently released a study, describing the three best types of p.r. for Canada, and explaining how each one works.

Fair Vote Canada is opposed to any system of proportional representation that does not permit voters to vote for individual candidates. Thus all three recommended systems encompass that principle.

The three types recommended are: (1) Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), used in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales; (2) Single Transferrable Vote (STV), used in Ireland, Malta, parts of Great Britain and a few U.S. cities: (3) Rural-Urban, which would be a new form and which is essentially a combination of single-member districts in sparsely-populated areas and multi-members in densely-populated areas.

Here is a the Report. It has links to Appendices which explain each system. The Report itself makes the case for proportional representation in general. If you are interested in p.r. but have always wanted to understand it better, this document is an excellent reference. It is clear and doesn’t depend on computer presentation; it can be printed and disseminated on paper. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.