On April 19, the Arizona legislature passed HB 2304. This is the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill. It says that when a new or previously unqualified party qualifies for the ballot, it is then entitled to be on the ballot for the next two elections, not just the next election. Assuming Governor Jan Brewer signs the bill, the Green Party will be on the 2012 ballot automatically. This will be the first time the Arizona Green Party has ever approached an election year, already on the ballot.

The bill also legalizes out-of-state circulators for all types of petition.

The Arizona State Court of Appeals says it will release an opinion in City of Tucson v State of Arizona, 2ca-cv-2010-0083, on Wednesday, April 20. This is the case over whether the Arizona’s Constitution protects a city’s right to use partisan city elections if it wishes, or whether the state legislature can require all cities to use non-partisan elections. The voters of Tucson have voted in favor of partisan city elections, but in 2009 the legislature passed a bill requiring all cities to use non-partisan elections. The Superior Court had upheld the state law.

Although it has been more than ten months since California voters passed Proposition 14, the “top-two open primary”, with 53.73% of the vote, the U.S. Justice Department still hasn’t approved the measure. On April 15, the Department of Justice requested more information from California.

Many years ago, the Mississippi legislature passed a bill to establish a top-two system, but the Justice Department never pre-cleared it, so it never went into practice in Mississippi. However, the Justice Department did approve Louisiana’s system in 1975.

California laws must be pre-cleared under section five of the Voting Rights Act, because four particular California counties had very lower voter participation many decades ago, when the benchmarks were set for determining which areas are covered by section five. The four counties are Monterey, Kings, Yuba and Merced. None of the special elections held under California’s top-two laws have included any part of those counties, but obviously the 2012 election will include them.