Political Science Professor Mathew Manweller has published an article in the Election Law Journal on voter confusion in Washington state’s top-two system, “The Very Partisan Nonpartisan Top-Two Primary: Understanding What Voters Don’t Understand.” The article is based on Manweller’s experimental findings, giving voters three Washington state ballots and asking them for their understanding of the relationship between candidates and their own political parties. The experiment involved 183 new voters, 102 ordinary voters, and 549 politically active voters.

His experiment showed that a large proportion of voters are confused about the relationship between parties and candidates. Washington’s top-two system would be unconstitutional if voters believe that party labels on the ballot means anything other than that candidate’s statement about his or her own political leanings. Therefore, Manweller’s findings are relevant to whether the top-two system survives court scrutiny. Manweller’s article has been submitted to the Ninth Circuit, which is currently considering the constitutionality of the system. Because the article is now in the public record, and because the Washington Secretary of State’s web page links to the article, it can be seen by anyone, notwithstanding that normally Election Law Journal articles are copywrited. Here is the article. Thanks to Thomas Jones for noticing the link, and thanks to the Washington Secretary of State for posting it.

On October 17, the Missouri Senate convened and considered many amendments to two bills that would have altered the February 7, 2012 presidential primary. In the end, the Senate defeated all the proposed amendments and didn’t pass any bill on this subject. Frontloading HQ has the details here.

Although the February 7 presidential primary will now be held, it will not choose delegates to the Republican national convention. The Missouri Republican Party will use caucuses in March instead. Retaining the February 7 presidential primary will enable the state’s two ballot-qualified minor parties, the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party, to have their own presidential primaries. UPDATE: here is a newspaper story on the retention of the primary.

On October 17, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin H. Settle ordered Washington state to release the names and addresses of people who signed the 2009 referendum petition on civil unions for same-sex couples. Here is the 34-page decision in Doe v Reed, 3:09-cv-05456.

The people who circulated Referendum R-71 had originally filed this lawsuit in 2009, hoping to retain privacy for the people who had signed their petition. They had won the first round, in U.S. District Court in 2009, but the Ninth Circuit had then reversed the decision. Then the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, and ruled that whether the names and addresses should be released depends on whether there is a likelihood that the signers would be harassed if their names were made public. The U.S. District Court then reviewed the evidence and in its October 17, 2011 decision, concluded that the signers have little to fear. The decision reviews the testimony of several people who were on the side of secrecy, and noted that they themselves didn’t seem to have any fear of being publicly identified. The decision also notes that much of the evidence in favor of secrecy was actually not from Washington state at all, but from California, where a somewhat similar ballot measure had been on the ballot in 2008. Finally, the judge noted that a list of people who gave money to support the referendum was already public knowledge, and it didn’t seem that people who had given money for the referendum had been harassed. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.