On April 30, U.S. District Court Judge David Russell upheld Oklahoma’s procedure for independent presidential candidates. Barr v Ziriax, civ-08-730-R. The decision is only eight pages long. The decision does not try to rebut either of the plaintiff’s two most powerful arguments. Oklahoma required 43,913 signatures for an independent presidential candidate in 2008, but didn’t require any signatures for independent candidates for other office. The U.S. Supreme Court had said in Anderson v Celebrezze that states have less interest in keeping independent presidential candidates off their ballot, than in keeping independent candidates for other office off the ballot. Yet the decision does not acknowledge that point.

Also, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that courts are supposed to examine how often a challenged ballot access law is used. No one has qualified under the Oklahoma independent presidential petition procedure since 1992, yet the decision simply says that since the law was upheld (by the same judge) in both 1996 and 2000, the matter is closed. Plaintiffs will appeal to the 10th circuit.

On May 12, British Columbia voters will vote on whether to use Single Transferable Voting for provincial parliamentary elections. This article, from an Alberta newspaper, describes the proposal and focuses on how passage in British Columbia might advance the idea in Alberta.

The April 30 edition of the Harvard Law Record has this description of a panel on the National Popular Vote Plan, held on April 27. Both panelists, Law Professor Akhil Amar, and New Yorker editor Hendrick Hertzberg, support the plan, so in no sense was the panel a debate.