On Sunday, June 3, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed SB 83. It improves ballot access in two ways: (1) it lets qualified minor parties nominate someone even if that person has not been a member of that party in the past; (2) if a candidate for a district or county office is circulating a petition to get on a ballot, his or her circulators need not live in that district or county. SB 83 is an omnibus election law bill and it has many other unrelated provisions.
Colorado, Arkansas and Ohio seem to be the only states that have improved ballot access for minor parties or independent candidates this year, although there are still possibilities of improvements being made this year by the legislatures of Alabama, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, and New York.
Colorado also has a task force set up to look at voting methods and make recommendations to the 2008 legislature, initiated by Rep. John Kefalas and supported by Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff. Jan Kok is the Libertarian Party of Colorado representative to this committee, and set up a Google group for communication:
http://groups.google.com/group/COVoterChoice
(see “FC Weekly Coverage” comments)