On February 3, the Indiana Senate Elections Committee passed SB 201. It changes Indiana from an open primary to a closed primary. Here is the text.

Like many of these bills, there is no acknowledgment of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut (1986), which said that if parties want to let independents vote in their primaries, state law cannot interfere. The Indiana bill has no provision for parties with primaries to decide this for themselves, and merely says that no one may vote in a primary if that voter is not registered in the party.

On February 3, the Upstate Jobs Party has filed this Reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Upstate Jobs Party v Kosinski, 24-503. This is the case that challenges New York law that allows individuals to make bigger contributions to the nominees of qualified parties than to other candidates.

Oregon Representative John Lively (D-Springfield) has introduced HB 3166. It would set up a top-five primary, and abolish the ability of parties to have nominees. However, there is no provision for Ranked Choice Voting in the bill.

Thus, a primary might conceivably have four Democrats and one Republican placing in the top five. Then the general election would be obviously unfair to the Democratic Party, because the Democratic vote would be split up and the sole Republican would be extremely likely to win, even in a heavily Democratic district.