New Mexico state representative William Pratt will introduce a bill in early 2019 to lower the petition requirement for independent candidates. New Mexico has the nation’s most severe independent presidential petition requirement, 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. New Mexico is the only state with an independent presidential petition requirement in excess of 2% of the last gubernatorial vote.

Pratt was elected last month as a Democrat in the 27th house district. The district had elected Republicans ever since it was created in 2012, until Pratt won in November 2018 with 50.6% of the vote against his Republican opponent. Pratt is a retired physician who represents part of Albuquerque. In 2014 he was an independent candidate for the same seat, when his only opponent, the Republican, defeated him 60.6%-39.4%. Thanks to Bob Perls for this news.

Pennsylvania state officials have settled the lawsuit Jill Stein v Cortes, e.d., 2:16cv-6287, so that the state will give up using vote-counting machines that don’t have a paper trail. The settlement was approved on November 29 by the U.S. District Court that had been handling the case. The only two plaintiffs in this case have been Stein, Green Party presidential nominee in 2016, and a Pennsylvania voter, Randall Reitz.

This is the same lawsuit in which Stein also challenged the Pennsylvania laws that made it virtually impossible for her to obtain a recount of the Pennsylvania election results in November 2016. That part of the case was dropped earlier this year. Pennsylvania recount law requires a notarized petition of three voters inside each precinct for which a recount is sought. This is extremely difficult for a statewide recount request.

Until this settlement, 72% of Pennsylvania voters live in counties with no paper trail. Some counties did have a paper trail. Each county decides for itself which kinds of machine to use.

Here is the Complaint which Stein filed December 5, 2016, to initiate the lawsuit. The U.S. District Court will keep jurisdiction of the case to make sure the state complies with the settlement.

Seven federal lawsuits are pending in Georgia over voting rights problems involving the 2018 election. This useful law.com article describes each one.