The New York Times has this neutral story about California’s Proposition 14, the top-two measure. It is unfortunate that the story does not mention that Proposition 14 increases the requirements for parties to remain ballot-qualified. That is one of the most significant characteristics of Proposition 14, but no newspaper has mentioned that aspect in a news story except for the San Francisco Chronicle, which has mentioned it twice now.

The story is on the front page of the May 27 paper copy of the New York Times. It is continued on page three and includes a fairly large picture of Governor Schwarzenegger and Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado.

New voter registration data for the 29 states (plus D.C.) that have registration by party shows that Libertarian registration has risen 8% since October 2008. UPDATE: the original post said Libertarian registration was up 11%. At the time I wrote it, I had current official data for all but two states, Massachusetts and Florida. For those two states I had used unofficial data. Now I have received the official data, and it turns out my unofficial data for Florida had included inactive voters, and the unofficial data for Massachusetts had been wrong for another reason.

All other nationally-organized parties lost registrants. The number of registered voters in the 29 states (plus D.C.) that have registration by party declined since October 2008, because states purge their lists in between elections.

The June 1, 2010 printed Ballot Access News will have a table showing the number of registered voters in each state, in each party. More voters are registered Libertarians now than ever before. Between October 2008 and this spring, Libertarian registration rose in 19 of the 23 states that tally Libertarians. It declined in four states, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and South Dakota. The decline in South Dakota isn’t surprising because the party has not been on the ballot there since 2006.

The New York U.S. House seat for the 29th district has been vacant since early March 2010. On May 25, a U.S. District Court heard arguments on whether the U.S. Constitution requires the state to call a special election this summer to fill the seat. See this story. The story does not include any quotes from Judge David Larimer to indicate which way he may be leaning. It merely says that the hearing was held and that a written decision will be issued very soon. The case is Fox v Paterson, 10-cv-6240, western district.