On August 9, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Hornak, an Obama appointee, enjoined a Pennsylvania law barring out-of-state circulators, as applied to a particular referendum petition. OpenPittsburgh.Org v Wolosik, w.d., 2:16cv-1075. The specific law enjoined is P.S. 2869(a), which also covers the ban as applied to petitions to get on a primary ballot. That is a different statute than the statute banning out-of-state circulators for minor party and independent candidate petitions, which had already been invalidated.

The defendant had complained that the case had been filed too late. It was filed July 22, 2016. But the judge said that if the case had been filed sooner, then the government would have argued that there wasn’t enough evidence yet of harm. The proponents of the referendum petition were able to show that the ban on out-of-state circulators was threatening their ability to complete the petition drive.

Here is a link to the referendum petition’s proponents, explaining the purpose of the referendum.

On August 9, the daily newspaper for Champaign and Urbana, Illinois, the News-Gazette, editorialized that the Illinois law requiring independent candidates for U.S. House to submit a petition of 5% of the last vote cast is not fair. See the editorial here. The only states that require more than 10,000 signatures for an independent candidate for U.S. House are Illinois, Georgia, and North Carolina.

The Herald, daily newspaper for Everett and the northwest corner of the state, here editorializes that the Washington state top-two system be changed. The Herald recommends that the top four candidates be placed on the November ballot for partisan office. In addition, anyone receiving 20% in the primary would also go on the general election ballot.

The editorial seems to be motivated by the fact that the August 2, 2016 primary for State Treasurer resulted in two Republicans qualifying for the November ballot, and no Democrats, even though more votes were cast for Democrats for that office in the primary.

The editorial is not correct when it says that Nebraska and Louisiana also use the top-two system. Louisiana abolished primaries (except presidential primaries) and only has a general election in November, and a run-off. Nebraska has a semi-closed primary for some partisan offices, and a closed primary for the other partisan offices. For legislature, it has a non-partisan election. Thanks to Rob Richie for the link.