Sponsors have been found for bills to ease ballot access barriers in Georgia and Kansas. In Georgia, Representative Dar’shun Kendrick (D-Lithonia) will introduce a bill easing the petition requirements. She is an attorney.

In Kansas, the Green Party believes it has found a sponsor for a bill to lower the party petition from 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1%. The bill will also expand the petitioning period from six months to one year. Except for Americans Elect, no one has successfully qualified as a new party in Kansas since 1998, the year the U.S. Taxpayers Party completed the petition (that party is now known as the Constitution Party, and it went off the ballot in Kansas in 2002).

On January 17, the West Virginia House Judiciary Committee passed HB 2008. It changes the election system for Justice of the Supreme Court. Currently the state holds non-partisan elections for that office in November of even years. The bill would move these elections to the May primary, and if no one received at least 40%, there would be a runoff in November.

In 2018, there were two vacancies on the court. At each election, ten candidates filed, and the winners were seated even though neither had received as much as 40%. Here is a copy of the bill.

Nebraska Senator Justin Wayne (D-Omaha) has introduced LD 98. It lowers the number of signatures for a non-presidential independent candidate for statewide office from 10% of the number of registered voters, to 4,000 signatures.

The state agreed last year not to enforce the 10% petition requirement, so this bill, if passed, merely brings the election code into conformity with actual policy.