Kansas Representative Steven Johnson (R-Assaria) has introduced HB 2274. It lowers the petition for a newly-qualifying party from 2% of the last gubernatorial vote to 1%. It also expands the petitioning period for such a petition from six months to one year. This bill was introduced at the request of the Green Party, which has never appeared on the Kansas ballot (although Ralph Nader qualified as an independent in Kansas in 2000).

No party has successfully qualified in Kansas since 1996. Thanks to Paul Krumm for the news.

On February 19, a California Superior Court Judge put Glendale School Board candidate Nayiri Nahabedian on the April 7 ballot. She had missed the deadline for filing her declaration of candidacy, because she had relied on erroneous information from election officials. See this story.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says he will set the date of the special election in the 11th U.S. House district by Friday, February 20, according to this story. That is the date set forth in the U.S. District Court decision earlier this week. The court order said if the Governor didn’t set the date by February 20, or give a good reason why, then the Court would set a date instead.