On March 1, New Mexico HB 407, the omnibus election law bill that is almost 500 pages long, passed the House Judiciary Committee. It had previously passed the House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee. Among other provisions, it lowers the number of signatures for independent candidates. Currently all independent candidates need a petition of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. The bill lowers the number of signatures for non-presidential independents to 2%, and lowers the independent presidential petition to match the number of signatures needed for minor party presidential candidates. That provision is somewhat puzzling, because qualified minor parties in New Mexico don’t need any signatures for their presidential nominee, although they do need signatures for their other nominees.

Mississippi elects all its state officers in November 2019. Here is the list of candidates. The filing deadline is the same for everyone, except for president, but of course the 2019 election has nothing to do with presidential elections. The filing deadline this year was March 1, 2019.

There are no Reform Party nominees. This is surely because the leader of the Mississippi Reform Party, Shawn O’Hara, died last year, and he was the party’s candidate recruiter.

The Constitution Party is running Bob Hickingbottom for Governor. The Libertarian Party has two legislative candidates. No other third parties have any candidates. There are many independent candidates for the legislature, and one independent is running for Governor.

On March 1, the Utah House passed HB 259 by 48-21. This is the bill to eliminate the straight-ticket device.