On July 20, a Canadian Appeals Court upheld a Canadian election law that bars Canadian citizens from voting if they have lived permanently outside Canada for more than five years. The lower court had struck the law down. The case will probably be appealed to the Canadian Supreme Court.

There is no such law in the United States, and some U.S. citizens have lived in foreign countries for up to fifty years or more and yet continue to vote absentee. But U.S. citizens can’t vote absentee if they move to a U.S. possession.

See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

On July 21, the North Carolina Senate passed HB 373. This is the bill that moves the 2016 North Carolina presidential primary from February to March 15. The bill has no impact on the primary for other office, which would continue to be in early May. Thanks to Josh Putnam for the news.

On July 15, Congressman John Delaney (D-Maryland) spoke about his HB 2655, which mandates top-two primaries for congressional elections, and also directs that Congress study redistricting for U.S. House districts. Delaney spoke on the telephone to a conference call audience organized by IndependentVoting. IndependentVoting is the new name for the group that was once the New Alliance Party, then the Patriot Party, then part of the Reform Party, then Committee for a Unified Independent Party.

Here is a link to the entire 28-minute conference call. Congressman Delaney does not mention the top-two part of his bill until the nine minute mark. The only advantage to a top-two primary that he mentions is so that independents can vote in primaries. Neither he, nor hostess Jackie Salit, mentions that independents can also vote in congressional primaries if the state has an open primary, or a semi-closed primary, or a blanket primary. From listening to the call, one would never know that in two-thirds of all U.S. House districts, it is already possible for independent voters to vote in congressional primaries of both major parties, without that voter having to join the party. In still other districts, independents can vote in Democratic congressional primaries but not Republican ones.

When Jackie Salit describes the bill, early in the call, she says it applies to all federal office. But it does not apply to presidential elections.

Congressman Delaney seemed more eager to talk about the part of the bill that would require a study of independent redistricting commissions. Neither he nor anyone mentioned that in November 2014, there were three candidates on the ballot in Delaney’s district: Delaney received 94,704; the Republican received 91,930; and the Green received 3,762. Delaney represents a swing district and he might feel that a top-two system would be better for him personally, because in a top-two system the Green would not have been on the November ballot.