The Missouri legislature adjourned without passing any bills to alter ballot access. The bills to force independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy in March (even though their petition isn’t due until July) all failed. That is good news.

Unfortunately, the bill to fix the drafting error in the new party petition also failed to pass. The law on how new parties get on the ballot was substantially improved in 1993. Unfortunately, due to a drafting error in 1993, the law still says that new party petitions must include a list of presidential elector candidates. This is peculiar, because the law also says that a party chooses all its candidates, for all office, by convention after it turns in its petition. This development is bad news for the Missouri Constitution Party, since its party petition (currently being circulated) doesn’t include the names of any candidates for presidential elector. It is possible that the Secretary of State might overlook this, since everyone agrees that the requirement is an inadvertent error.