On February 14, the Arizona Senate Government & Elections Committee unanimously passed SB 1460. It lets independent candidates collect electronic signatures. Current law only lets primary candidates collect electronic signatures.

Unfortunately, the bill also moves the filing deadline for write-in candidates from 40 days before the election, to 106 days before the election. Having such an early filing deadline for write-in candidates defeats the purpose of having write-ins, because generally write-in voting is most useful when something unexpected happens later in the election year. Also the bill says if no one files to be a qualified write-in candidate, the write-in blank line for that particular office should be eliminated from the ballot.