On May 17, California held a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 36th district. Here is commentary on how the Proposition 14 system worked from Bill Whalen, a Research Fellow at Hoover Institution. Whalen has previously worked as a media consultant for Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Campbell, Pete Wilson, and Richard Riordan, all known as moderate California Republicans.

Also, T.A. Barnes, an Oregon political activist and a Democrat, has this commentary on the recent election at www.blueoregon.

Here is commentary by Jessica Levinson, Director of Political Reform at the Center for Governmental Studies and an Adjunct Professor at Loyola Law School.

Here is a you tube from a California Green Party statewide meeting on May 1, talking about the lawsuits against the top-two system in California and Washington. The attorney for the California lawsuits, Gautam Dutta, is the second speaker. Richard Winger is included also.

On May 20, the Ninth Circuit upheld San Francisco’s particular type of Instant Runoff Voting. The case is Dudum v Arntz, 10-17198. The opinion is 33 pages. The plaintiffs, San Francisco voters, had filed this lawsuit in 2010. The lawsuit did not challenge the constitutionality of Instant Runoff Voting in general. Rather, it challenged San Francisco’s version, which limits each voter to ranking only three candidates. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

The attorneys for the voters who challenged the San Francisco system are the same attorneys who represent former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado in the lawsuits that challenge certain aspects of California’s top-two system. Maldonado intervened in those lawsuits, Field v Bowen and Chamness v Bowen, to defend the parts of California’s top-two system that do not treat all candidates equally relative to party labels, and which permit write-in space on run-off ballots but do not allow those write-ins to be counted. It is somewhat ironic that the same attorneys who attacked San Francisco’s version of IRV on the grounds that it fails to “count” the votes of all voters, are defending the top-two law that specifically says some votes can not be counted.

New Mexico and Wisconsin are both somewhat likely to abandon straight-ticket devices starting in 2012. In New Mexico, it is reported that the new Secretary of State, Dianna Duran, will eliminate the device. New Mexico election law does not authorize it, but past Secretaries of State have imposed it anyway. In the past all parties had a straight-ticket device, but the preceding Secretary of State, Mary Herrera, had eliminated it for minor parties, while keeping it for major parties.

In Wisconsin, the omnibus election law bill has passed the legislature, and it abolishes the straight-ticket device. The bill, AB 7, passed the Assembly on May 11, and the Senate on May 17. The bill contains many provisions that make it more difficult for certain individuals to vote, by requiring government photo-ID, and therefore Democrats have vigorously opposed it. However, Republicans are in a majority in both houses of the legislature, and the Governor is a Republican, so the bill will probably be signed into law.