On April 4, a New Jersey state trial court upheld New Jersey’s discriminatory ballot order (in some counties) for primary elections. See this story. The primary candidates endorsed by the party are all grouped together in a single column in the main part of the ballot. Candidates who are not part of the organization’s slate, but who have their own slate, are placed in another column to the right. But candidates who are not part of any slate are placed on the far-right portion of the ballot, where voters may not even notice their names.

See this editorial in the South Jersey Times about the lawsuit.

The California Senate Elections & Constitutional Amendments Committee will hear SB 1288 on Tuesday, April 19. The bill, if enacted, would let any California city use ranked choice voting for its own elections. Currently, only charter cities may make that choice. The sponsors are Senators Mark Leno and Ben Allen. Allen is chair of the Senate Elections Committee.

According to Independent Political Report, Joe Miller will seek the Constitution Party’s presidential nomination. See the IPR story here. He was the Republican Party nominee for U.S. Senate in Alaska in 2010. The party’s national convention opens April 13 in Salt Lake City.