On June 12, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo vetoed AB 597.  It would have let independent voters vote in partisan primaries.  Lombardo is a Republican, and the Republicans in the legislature had unanimously opposed the bill.

Here is the veto message.  It says the voters rejected a top-five ballot initiative last year, and therefore the bill violates the will of voters.  This is a stunning non sequitor.  The bill and the initiative are very different.  The Governor refers to both ideas as an “open primary”, but he is misusing accepted vocabulary.

Wales has its own Parliament, although its powers are limited.  Starting in 2026, it will elect its Parliament using the closed-list form of proportional representation.  See this story.

On June 11, the Maine legislature passed LD 1666.  The Senate vote was 20-14; the House vote was 72-70.  It changes the definition of “ranked choice voting” to say that the system is a system which elects candidates who won a plurality.  The bill doesn’t actually change how RCV works; it is a vocabulary tweak.

The reason this matters is that the State Supreme Court years ago interpreted the State Constitution to ban RCV in general elections for state office.  That is why Maine uses RCV for federal primaries and federal general elections, and also uses it for state office primaries, but does not use it for state general elections.  The backers of the bill hope that this vocabulary change will lead the State Supreme Court to approve RCV for state office general elections.