On June 18, Fairvote issued this analysis of California’s top-two system. The analysis says, “In the vast majority of cases (from 2012 in California), Top Two fails to have any meaningful impact on the race, retaining uncompetitive races dominated by incumbents and major party insiders – yet it comes at the expense of near complete elimination of minor parties and independents from a general election voice.”

The analysis recommends these changes: (1) let the top four vote-getters advance; (2) use ranked-choice voting in the general election; (3) restore write-in space to the November ballot; (4) when candidates have been endorsed by a qualified party, the ballot should mention the endorsement; (5) the time between the primary and the general election should be shortened.

The report finds that in the June 2012 primary, the median second-ranked candidate received 25.1% of the vote, and the median fourth-ranked candidate (in elections that had at least five candidates in the primary) received 5.8%. Consequently, letting the top four candidates advance to the general election would make it considerably easier for candidates to advance.

One problem with this approach is that there are invariably far more candidates when there is no incumbent running. In practice, letting four candidates advance would make it possible for candidates with little voter support to advance in races against incumbents, but in races without incumbents, even some candidates with substantial support would likely fail to advance. Also, there are always considerably more candidates in statewide races than in legislative races. So, again, there would be disparity, in which candidates with substantial support would be more likely to be excluded in statewide races than in legislative races. U.S. House races fall in-between. Using a candidate’s rank to decide whether that candidate advances is inherently arbitrary, compared to a system in which a candidate who polls a specified percentage of the vote advances, regardless of rank.

On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Nader v Serody, 12-1294. Nader had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the District of Columbia courts, on whether the 2004 Pennsylvania challengers to his petition should be blocked from seizing Nader’s funds from his bank account in Washington, D.C. Nader had lost on this issue earlier, but then it had been revealed that the challengers to his petition had illegally used state employees and state computers to work on their challenge. Although certain figures in the group of challengers were criminally punished, neither the Pennsylvania state courts nor the D.C. courts would re-open the matter.

The U.S. Supreme Court order for this case says that Justice Alito did not participate in the decision on the Nader matter. Presumably that is because he had some personal connection to some Pennsylvania figures involved in the controversy.

A constitutional case is pending in the 3rd circuit over whether the Pennsylvania challenge system, which puts petitioning groups at risk of paying as much as $100,000 in costs when their petitions are found insufficient, violates the U.S. Constitution. That case is Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Aichele, 13-1952.

On June 22, the Utah Democratic Party state convention debated whether to retain the existing system for party nominations. Utah is the only state in which both major parties use a system in which candidates seeking a nomination first compete in party caucuses. The only people who can then run in the party primary are those who had substantial support at the caucuses. See this story. Some Democrats wanted to abandon the caucuses and simply let all candidates run in the party’s primary. But proponents of the current system said that would create a need for candidates to raise more campaign funds.