In 2021 the Mississippi State Supreme Court removed the State Constitutional right for the voters to use the initiative process to alter state laws. The Court said the Constitutional provision was flawed because it said signatures had to come from all five U.S. House district, but after the 2000 census Mississippi only had four districts.

Ever since, bills have been introduced in the Mississippi legislature to bring back the initiative, but every time the bills die. See this story about the 2025 session.

Connecticut Representative Nick Menapace (D-Niantic) has introduced HB 5483, to use Ranked Choice Voting in primaries. Each party that has a primary would be allowed to decide if it wants to use RCV or not.

Illinois State Senator Rachel Ventura (D-Joliet) has introduced SB 2158, which would establish a top-two system. It even extends the top-two system to presidential elections. Here is the text. See page 45 of the bill, in which section 7-60 would say, “Not withstanding any other provision of law, the two candidates in any primary election who receive the most votes in the primary election, regardless of the party affiliation of the candidates, shall be the only two candidates certified to participate in the general election.”

All Illinois primaries for federal and state office are in early March, so this bill, if enacted, would require anyone who wanted to run in November to file in late November of the odd year before the election year.

Ordinarily, supporters of top-two never write their bills or initiative to include presidential elections, because if they did, the major party presidential nominees wouldn’t be the same in each state. For example, in 2016, the Illinois presidential primary totals for the top three candidates were: Hillary Clinton 1,039,555; Bernie Sanders 999,494; Donald Trump 562,464. Under the terms of SB 2158, the only presidential candidates who would be on the November ballot in Illinois would have been Clinton and Sanders.