On October 10, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Piersol issued his written opinion in South Dakota Libertarian Party v Gant, 14-cv-4132. This is the case over whether the state should have put the Libertarian Party’s nominee for Public Service Commissioner on the November ballot. The judge had denied relief on August 28, but only now has issued a written opinion. Here is the 12-page opinion.

One of the most important parts of the decision has been relegated to a footnote. See footnote 4, which says that the party’s own bylaws prohibit it from nominating a non-member. Generally, for a political party freedom of association lawsuit to succeed, there must be a conflict between a party’s bylaws and a state law. That is not the case in this lawsuit.

The Brookings Institution, a venerable think tank in Washington, D.C., has posted this article about top-two primaries.

The report, by Professor Elaine Kamarck and Georgetown Graduate Student Alexander R. Podkul, uses confusing vocabulary, and sometimes refers to top-two primaries as “blanket primaries.” Blanket primaries only exist in Alaska, and they provide that the top vote-getter in the primary from the ranks of each party advance to the general election. These definitions are all set forth in “Voting at the Political Fault Line” (lead author Bruce Cain), a compendium of scholarly articles about primaries published by the University of California Berkeley Press.

On October 13, a four-party debate for U.S. Senate will be held in Arkansas. The debaters will be the nominees of the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Green Parties. The debate will be carried live on C-SPAN. Thanks to Mark Swaney for this news.