On January 25, the Alameda County, California, Superior Court issued a procedural ruling in Rubin v Bowen, RG11-605301. This is the lawsuit filed by the state Peace & Freedom Party and Libertarian Party, and the Alameda County Green Party, that challenges the top-two system on the grounds that it violates the rights of voters who wish to vote for minor party candidates in the November election.

The ruling says that the last complaint, which was filed before the 2012 election, needs to be re-written, to take account of what happened in the 2012 election. In that election, all minor party candidates who ran for either branch of Congress failed to place first or second in June, and therefore did not appear on the November ballot. The only minor party candidates for state office that placed second in the June primary were three Peace & Freedom Party candidates, and the only reason they succeeded is that only one person had filed to be on the June primary ballot, so the PFP members filed as write-in candidates in the primary and managed to place second.

The next hearing in this case is a status conference to be held on March 4, 2013.

California Assemblymember Jeff Gorell (R-Thousand Oaks) has introduced AB 141, which would increase the number of congressional and state legislative elections with only one candidate, instead of two, on the November ballot.

Current law says the top two vote-getters, for congress and state partisan office, appear on the November ballot. But AB 141 would say that a write-in candidate in the June primary could not appear on the November ballot, even if he or she places second in June, unless the candidate received a number of write-ins equal to 1% of the total vote cast for that office in the last general election.

If this law had been in effect in November 2012, there would have been eight U.S. House or state legislative races with only one person on the ballot in November (the November ballot doesn’t contain write-in space). In reality, in 2012, there were eight races in which only one person filed to be on the primary ballot, but in six of those races, a write-in filed in the primary, and appeared on the November ballot. None of the June write-in candidates came close to polling as much as 1% of the vote cast in November 2010, so if this bill had been in effect, all eight races would have had only one person on the November ballot.

The only minor party members who appeared on the California November ballot for state legislature were three Peace & Freedom Party members who had filed as primary write-ins in these races. Obviously when only one person is on the June ballot, it’s easy for a write-in candidate in June to place second, and they did so.

The Gorell bill appears to violate the California Constitution, which says, “The top two candidates, as determined by the voters in an open primary, shall advance to a general election.” Thanks to Dave Kadlecek for this news.

Two identical Florida bills, HB 25 and SB 388, relax the existing law that restricts whom political parties may nominate. Existing law, since 2011, has told parties that they can’t nominate anyone who was a member of some other party during the year before the candidate filing deadline. The bills change that to provide that parties can’t nominate someone who was a member of another party at any time during the period six months before the general election.

Because of the existing severe restriction, a former state legislator, Nancy Argenziano, was forced to run for a seat in the State House last year as the nominee of the Independent Party. She wanted to run as a Democrat, but she was not permitted to do so because she had unknowingly and accidentally registered as a member of the Independent Party during 2011. She still did well in the November 2012 election, polling 42.03% in a two-person race as the Independent Party nominee.

HB 25 and SB 388 have many other election law provisions as well, including a relaxation of the severe requirements placed on organizations that conduct voter registration drives. Some of those restrictions were enjoined by a federal court last year. The existing law requires voter registration organizations to be subject to severe fines if they don’t submit a voter registration form to election officials within 48 hours of the voter having filled out that form.