Since 2008, Jeff Schauer has been writing a blog about California politics and government called “California Mwananchi”. Schauer is a lecturer and a graduate student at U.C. Berkeley in history. This April 20 column discusses what California’s election system and its governmental problems.

In addition, here is another blog post about the system, from the Bookwormroom. It presents the perspective of a Republican voter who wants to vote for Republicans in the general election, even in districts in which the party probably won’t win. The columnns discusses the free speech aspects of political campaigns.

The lawsuit against the Washington state top-two system is now docketed in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Democratic Party’s appeal is 11-1263 and the Libertarian Party’s appeal is 11-1266. The state’s response, should it choose to submit one, is due May 21. The Court could possibly decide in June whether to hear this case, or it might put off that decision until October.

On April 23, the Minnesota Senate rejected the bill to move the primary (for office other than President) from August to June. See this story.

An earlier blog post about the Minnesota bill said that if the bill passed, the effect would be to automatically move the petition deadline for independent presidential candidates, and the presidential nominees of unqualified parties, from August to June. That was incorrect. Minnesota decoupled the presidential independent deadline from the primary date several years ago.