British Columbia held an election for its own legislature on May 14. The Green Party elected Andrew Weaver. He is the first Green Party member elected to the body. The other results: Liberal Party won 50 seats; New Democratic Party won 33 seats; one independent was elected.

The distribution of the popular vote was: Liberal 44.4%, New Democratic 39.5%, Green 8.0%, Conservative 4.8%, others 3.3%.

Canada uses the same election system that the United States uses. Whoever gets the most votes is the winner.

On May 14, the Texas House Elections Committee passed SB 817, which would provide that ballot-qualified parties that nominate by convention hold their state convention in April, instead of June. Texas primaries are in March. The Libertarian Party requested this bill. The party’s experience has been that the campaigns for its nominees would be advantaged, if the candidates could present themselves to the public as official nominees earlier in the process. The bill has already passed the Senate. The Green Party also supports this bill. The bill would have no effect on petition deadlines for newly-qualifying parties, which would continue to be in May. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.

California AB 1038 may receive a vote on the Assembly floor on Thursday, May 16. This is the bill to make it illegal to pay registration drive workers according to how many registrants they obtain for any particular political party. If this bill were enacted, it would be much more difficult for either a newly-qualifying party, or an already-qualified party, to get on the ballot or remain on. The only realistic way for parties to be qualified in California is to have approximately 110,000 registered members.

No group formally supports AB 1038, but when the bill was in the Assembly Elections Committee, every Democrat on the committee voted for it. If you live in California, and especially if your Assemblymember is a Democrat, please e-mail or telephone your Assemblymember and ask for a “No” vote. Governor Jerry Brown vetoed very similar bills in both 2011 and 2012, and some federal courts have struck down laws similar to the provisions in this bill.