On May 19, California held a special election to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 7th district, in Contra Costa County. Steve Glazer, an anti-union Democrat, was elected. Stories about his election victory in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News, all said that the top-two system was responsible for Glazer’s win.

In reality, all California special elections 1967-2010 used a blanket primary. All candidates ran on a single primary ballot and all voters used that ballot. If someone got 50% that person was elected. Otherwise there was a runoff, with the top vote-getter from each party, plus any independent candidates. In the first round in this 7th district race, Glazer received 38,411 votes. The 2nd highest Democrat only received 28,389 votes. No one got 50% and there was one Republican on the ballot.

Under the old system, Glazer would have been in a runoff with the only Republican. He would have been the Democratic nominee because he got more votes than any other Democrat. He would easily have defeated the only Republican in the runoff, since she had no campaign, and even endorsed Glazer.

Nothwithstanding these facts, the Los Angeles Times wrote, “Had Glazer been playing under the old rules – in which each party selects its nominees for the general election – he wouldn’t have been in the runoff at all.” The election returns from the March first round disprove that. The reporter who wrote the story e-mailed me to say that the paper would not run a correction, because if a strong Republican had entered the election, then Glazer might not have done so well in the first round. However, the fact that a strong Republican didn’t enter the race has nothing to do with the new election system. No strong Republican entered the race because Republican Party officials discouraged them and supported Glazer. They would have acted the same way under the old system.

On May 21, the Alabama House passed SB 240, which moves the primary for president and all other office to the first Tuesday in March. Existing law is the second Tuesday in March. Assuming the bill is signed, the 2016 primary will be March 1. The bill has the effect of making the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties and non-presidential independent candidates also due on March 1, instead of March 8 as under the old law.

On May 20, the Sixth Circuit upheld the aspect of Michigan ballot access laws for new parties that requires newly-qualifying parties to submit approximately twice as many signatures as the number of votes needed for an established party to remain on the ballot. Erard v Michigan Secretary of State, 14-1873.

The decision is only eight pages and does not even mention the two precedents that say states cannot require more signatures for a new party than it requires votes for an old party. Those precedents are the U.S. Supreme Court decision Williams v Rhodes, and a 3-judge U.S. District Court decision from Massachusetts in 1972 called Baird v Davorem.

In Williams v Rhodes, the U.S. Supreme Court said that Ohio was violating the constitution by requiring a 15% (of the last gubernatorial vote) for new parties, but only a 10% vote for an old party to stay on the ballot In Baird v Davorem, the federal court in Massachusetts struck down Massachusetts law that required a 3% petition (of the last gubernatorial vote) for a new party’s nominees, but kept old parties on the ballot if they continued to receive one-tenth of 1% of the vote for Governor.

The Sixth Circuit wouldn’t even grant an oral argument in this case. The decision is per curiam and is signed by Judges R. Guy Cole and Ronald Gilman (Clinton appointees) and Jeffrey Sutton (a Bush Jr. appointee). The case had been filed by a pro se activist from the Socialist Party. Michigan and Kansas are the only two states in which the number of signatures for a new party to get on is greater than the number of votes for an old party to stay on. The Plaintiff, Matt Erard, will ask for reconsideration.