On June 26, an African-American voter, Elise Brown, of Victorville, California, filed a federal lawsuit, charging that top-two, as applied, violates the Voting Rights Act and also violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The claim is based on voting rights. Brown charges that her November 2012 ballot, in the 8th U.S. House district, leaves her with only two Republicans, both of whom she alleges are hostile to her interests. The complaint charges that because there is no write-in space, and because she cannot in good conscience vote for either candidate who is listed on the ballot, the top-two system deprives her of a vote in November.

The case is Brown v Bowen, central district, Riverside, cv12-05547. Here is the complaint, which says that Brown is a member of the San Bernardino County Democratic Central Committee, and an officer of the Adelanto-Victorville Democratic Club. The two candidates who placed first and second in the 8th district are Assemblyman Paul Cook, a conservative Republican, and Greg Imus, another conservative Republican. The 8th district covers the bulk of the more rural parts of San Bernardino County, plus other counties on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

This is the first lawsuit against California’s top-two open primary that is filed by anyone associated with either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. The other three lawsuits that have been filed against California’s Proposition 14 have all been filed by independent candidates or minor political parties and their members.

The Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE) will hold its annual board meeting on July 15, Sunday, in Baltimore, at the Inner Harbor Holiday Inn, 301 W. Lombard Street, at noon. The meeting will be in the Harbor 2 Room. The Green Party is kindly making this room available to COFOE. The national convention of the Green Party will meet on the day before, Saturday, July 14, to choose a presidential and vice-presidential nominee, in the Chesapeake Ballroom of the same hotel. Then, on Sunday morning, the national committee of the Green Party will meet at 9 a.m. in the Harbor 2 Room, but that meeting is expected to be finished by noon, making the space available for the COFOE meeting.

COFOE was formed in 1985, and is a loose coalition of most of the nation’s nationally-organized parties, other than the two major parties. Also included are organizations that are interested in the legal problems of political parties and independent candidates. The COFOE board currently includes representatives from the Conservative Party, the Constitution Party, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Reform Party, the Socialist Party, the Working Families Party, Free & Equal, and the Committee for a Unified Independent Party.

Anyone is free to attend the board meeting.

Newspapers in Tennessee have run stories recently about the Green Party and the Constitution Party nominees for public office. For example, see this story. Both parties were put on the ballot by a U.S. District Court, in February 2012. They are the first two parties in Tennessee to be recognized since the period 1968-1972, when the American Party was on the ballot.

The Green Party has nominated six candidates for Congress, and five for the State House. The Constitution Party has only nominated one candidate, who is running for the U.S. Senate. The twelve candidates from these two parties could conceivably be removed from the November ballot, if the state succeeds in persuading the 6th circuit to reverse the decision of the U.S. District Court.