Current North Carolina law says the presidential primary should be the Tuesday following South Carolina’s presidential primary. However, in 2016, the South Carolina Republican primary will be February 20, and the Democratic presidential primary will be February 27. The North Carolina law is therefore ambiguous. If it means the Tuesday after the South Carolina Republican primary, then the 2016 North Carolina presidential primary is February 23. If it means the South Carolina Democratic primary, then it means March 1.

Adding to the uncertainty is the existenced of a North Carolina bill, HB 457, which would move the North Carolina primary to the second Tuesday in March, which would be March 8. No one knows if the bill will pass. It was introduced April 1 and hasn’t moved yet.

This National Journal article says that HB 457 is likely to pass the House, but that it faces severe obstacles in the Senate because Senator Bob Rucho is chair of the committee that handles election law bills (the Senate State and Local Government Committee) and he is the author of the existing law. He doesn’t want the existing law changed. Thanks to Josh Putnam for the link.

Canada will hold a Parliamentary election on October 19, 2015. This story says the leader of the Liberal Party favors letting the Green Party into this year’s debates. The leaders of the other two major parties have not yet expressed an opinion.

On April 8, the Third Circuit issued this 13-page opinion in Balsam v Guadagno, 14-3882. Plaintiffs are New Jersey voters who argued that the state’s closed primary system is unconstitutional and should be abolished. Some of the voters are registered independents, and some are Democrats or Republicans who say they only register into those parties so they can vote in the primaries of those parties, but they would rather be registered independents.

The Third Circuit relies on past precedents to find that the U.S. Constitution does not prevent states from holding closed primaries. The decision says that even if the New Jersey Constitution does have provisions that might protect independent voters, federal courts cannot strike down laws on grounds that the law violates the State Constitution unless the state waives its sovereign immunity, and that New Jersey has not waived its immunity.