On February 19, the government of Virginia asked U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney to explain unclear points in his January 2026 order striking down Virginia’s law on felon voting. See here.
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On February 20, the Kentucky Senate passed SB 80. It restores voting rights for most felons after completion of their sentence. Certain felonies are excluded: treason, Bribery at an election, election fraud, violent felony offensses, felong sexual abuse, and criminal offense against a child. If the bill passes, the voters would vote on the bill, because it is a proposed constitutional amendment.
A bill in the Washington state legislature to ban paying initiative petitioners on a per-signature basis is dead. SB 5973 did not advance through the Senate, and it is now too late for it to pass.
The Illinois Green Party will attempt to place its statewide slate on the 2026 ballot. See here for the list of the statewide slate. The party did not get on the statewide ballot in 2024. It is likely that the Green Party will be the only third party that petitions for statewide office in Illinois this year, except for the Independence Party. The law requires 25,000 signatures. The state does not permit petitioning to begin until February 22, and the signatures are due in late May. The deadline is probably unconstitutionally early.
The Harvard Political Review has this article by Noah Chung-Igelman. It gives the history of strong independent U.S. Senate campaigns in the last twelve years, and explains why none of them succeeded in electing a new independent member of the U.S. Senate. It discusses possibilities for 2026.