The Omaha World-Herald has this story about the bill in the Nebraska legislature to eliminate the ability of each U.S. House district in Nebraska to choose its own presidential elector. The bill to return Nebraska to a winner-take-all system is likely to pass this year, according to the story. The bill is LB 21 and it will be heard in committee on February 23.

The same committee will also hear LB 367 on February 23. That is the bill promoted by the Commission on Uniform State Laws to require each party to submit two candidates for presidential elector for each slot, one elector and one alternate. Then, if the elector votes for someone his or her state party didn’t wish, the elector is deemed to have resigned, and the alternate becomes the elector instead.

Five Republican state legislators in South Dakota have introduced SB 175, which requires political parties to permit independent voters to vote in their primaries. Currently, state law gives each party the choice of whether to let independents vote in its primaries or not. Only the Democratic and Republican Parties are ballot-qualified, and neither of them now permits independents to vote in their primaries. The bill has a hearing in the Senate Local Government Committee on February 9. UPDATE: the hearing was postponed until February 14.

On February 8, the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department approved two election law changes from California and Louisiana. Both states are under section five of the Voting Rights Act. The Department approved California’s redistricting commission for U.S. House elections, a change made by the voters last year. Also the Department approved switching Louisiana congressional elections from closed or semi-closed primaries, to a top-two system in which the first round is in November. Louisiana had used a top-two system for congressional elections between 1978 and 2006 as well, but the legislature had changed it in 2006 to a closed or semi-closed system. Then, in 2010, the legislature changed it back again.