Marilyn Marks, an activist who worries about the accuracy of vote-counting equipment, has finally won her court battle to inspect ballots cast in Aspen, Colorado city elections from 2009. See this story. On June 28, the Colorado Supreme Court said it will not review the State Court of Appeals decision that had said old ballots are public records.

The legislature had passed a bill this year, clarifying that old voted ballots are public records available for public inspection (with certain restrictions), but that had not ended the controversy over ballots from a past election. When the ballots are made available for public inspection, of course there will be no method for knowing which voter put any particular ballot in the ballot box.

On June 27, the British government introduced its bill into Parliament to transform the House of Lords into a mostly-elected body. The name of the body might or might not eventually be changed, perhaps to the Senate. See this story for the details. The first elections would be in 2015. No one can predict whether or not the bill will pass. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.

At its June 2012 meeting, the Santa Barbara County Republican Central Committee refused to endorse Abel Maldonado for U.S. House, 24th district, even though he is the only Republican on the November 2012 ballot. The other person on the ballot is incumbent Democrat Lois Capps. See this story.

Maldonado supporters will attempt to obtain the party’s endorsement at the July meeting, and are also threatening members of the committee with removal for their failure to endorse Maldonado. However, under the legal theory behind top-two, parties don’t have nominees, and therefore there seems to be no legal theory that would punish a party official body for refusing to endorse someone.