On May 6, Michael Chamness filed his motion for summary judgment in Chamness v Bowen, the federal case against two particular details of the California top-two system. The case attacks California’s discriminatory policy on ballot labels. It also attacks the new California law that says even though write-in space is to be printed on the ballot in Congressional and state office November elections, and even though the ballot doesn’t warn voters that any write-ins won’t be counted, in fact write-ins cannot be counted.

No declaratory judgment on either of these complaints has yet been issued by any California court, state or federal. The only action so far has been a denial of injunctive relief in various California special elections that have been held this year. Proponents of the top-two system, including almost all of California’s large daily newspapers, have generally not reported on these particular details about the top-two law, and have given little publicity to this lawsuit.

Ruth Ellen Brosseau is a newly elected member of the Canadian parliament. Here is just one of many articles about her. She was a New Democratic Party nominee from a Quebec district, and she won, even though she never believed that she would win. She is 27 years old and has apparently never visited the district that elected her. However, she seems a capable and dedicated individual, and most of the comments attached to this particular article are supportive. Canadian voters tend to be much more likely to vote on the basis of party than U.S. voters. The New Democratic Party also elected enough members of the Ontario Parliament in 1990 to take control of the Ontario government. That 1990 election also featured many New Democratic Party members of the provincial parliament who had not expected to win.

Canada requires 100 signatures plus a filing fee for a candidate any candidate to get on the ballot for the federal parliament. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

On May 6, some potential future candidates filed a lawsuit in Arizona state court, seeking to block a scheduled 2012 vote of the people on whether to shut off financing for public funding of candidates. See this story. The lawsuit includes some plaintiffs who want to seek public funding in Tucson city elections in the future. Apparently the proposed constitutional amendment that will be before the voters not only affects the state program for public funding for candidates for state office, but does the same to Tucson’s program for candidates in city elections.

The case is Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation v Bennett, Maricopa County Superior Court, cv2011-009646.