On April 7, many Illinois local governments held elections. Two Green Party members were re-elected, and one was elected. Peter Schwartzman was re-elected as Alderman, ward five, in Galesburg. He faced an opponent. Galesburg is in west central Illinois.

The other two Greens ran unopposed. Steve Alesch was re-elected Warrenville Park Commissioner. Adrian Frost was elected to the Plano Library Board. No one was on the ballot and he was the only announced candidate, and won with eleven write-ins. Warrenville and Plano are suburbs of Chicago. Thanks to Independent Political Report for this news.

On April 20, the Nevada Senate Legislative Operations & Elections Committee amended SB 499 and passed it. As amended, the bill does not create a top-two system. Instead, it improves the petition deadlines for newly-qualifying parties and non-presidential independent candidates. It moves the deadline for new parties from April to June, and moves the deadline for non-presidential independent candidates from February to June.

If the bill passes, the deadline for both types of petition will be June 3, 2016.

Jonathan Bernstein, a political scientist turned journalist and writer, recently tweeted many political scientists asking them what truths do they believe that the public just doesn’t believe? Here are the responses he received, set forth in an article he wrote for Bloomberg View.

Here is commentary by Julia Azari about the Bernstein article. The comments underneath Azari’s piece are especially worth reading.