The Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan has this editorial, expressing happiness that South Dakota now has five qualified parties on the ballot. The editorial does not say, but it could have said, that this is the most number of qualified parties in South Dakota since 1914. Between 1939 and 1984, South Dakota required a petition of 10% of the last gubernatorial vote for a new party to get on the ballot. No group ever managed to cope with that requirement, which was held unconstitutional in a Libertarian Party lawsuit in 1984. After that lawsuit, the legislature lowered the petition to 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote.

Parties that are not ballot-qualified in South Dakota still have the option to place their presidential nominees on the ballot with a petition of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, due in August.

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.