On February 5, the Indiana Senate defeated SB 328 by a vote of 17-31. It would have lowered the number of signatures for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. It would also have set up a procedure to let an unqualified party petition before it has chosen its nominees.

Although this is a discouraging outcome, this is the first time a ballot access improvement bill in Indiana has made even this headway. Although Indiana ballot access has been severe ever since 1983, only this year did a bill get introduced to reform it. Indiana is one of only four states in which Ralph Nader (who placed third in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004, and 2008) never managed to get on the ballot. The other three states have since then eased their ballot access laws. Thanks to Craig Marolf for this news.

On February 1, the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission’s General Provisions Committee defeated top-two by a vote of 7-0. The Florida Commission has the power to put ideas for changing the state constitution on the November 2018 ballot. The only election idea it will be putting on the ballot is a tweak to the law that lets all voters vote in a primary, for a particular office, if only members of a single party (and no independents) file. The tweak is to deem all write-in candidates in the general election (for that particular office) to be members of that same party, whether they really are or not.

On February 1, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Stengel issued an order deleting the county distribution requirement for statewide petitions for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Aichele, e.d. 5:12cv-2726. Therefore, there is no need for any future petitions to include at least 250 signatures from each of ten counties. This result came about because the Third Circuit had suggested that such county distribution requirements are unconstitutional unless the state could show that the requirement had no impact on voting rights. That motivated the state to consent to dropping the requirement.

Minor party and independent candidates for Governor in Pennsylvania in 2018 therefore need 5,000 signatures, which can be gathered anywhere in the state.