The Birmingham News has this story about the lawsuit filed last month by the Alabama Libertarian Party. The issue is whether it is constitutional to give the list of voters free to qualified parties but not to unqualified parties that are active.
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Chicago elects its city clerk on February 26 in a non-partisan election. Three candidates submitted the needed 12,500 signatures, but two of them have been challenged. The lawsuit over whether the challenge is valid is still not settled. In the meantime, all three candidates’ names have been printed on the ballot, but votes for them may not count. See this story. Thanks to Eliyahu Neiman for the link.
On September 19, the Arkansas Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee again did not take up SB 276, the bill to move the primary for all office from May to March. The author, State Senator Trent Garner, wants to amend it again. Perhaps he is preparing an amendment concerning the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties. Without the amendment, if SB 276 passed, the petition deadline would automatically go from January of the election year (which has already been declared unconstitutionally early) to November of the year before the election.
On February 19, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed SB 163, the bill that increases the petition requirement for newly-qualifying parties from 10,000 signatures to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote.
The Arizona Green Party has begun petitioning to get back on the ballot for the 2020 election. It needs 31,685 signatures by February 28, 2020. This is the highest number of signatures that Arizona has ever required for new parties; the number is high because turnout was so strong in November 2018. If the party succeeds, this will be the most difficult petition requirement that the Green Party will have overcome since 2010, when it got on in Texas.
Back in 1968, when the Arizona law was different, it was possible to put a new party on the ballot in Arizona with just 358 valid signatures.