On February 15, two Virginia ballot access improvements made headway.

SB 1049, which says that inactive voters may sign candidate petitions, passed the House Privileges and Elections Committee. The bill had already passed the Senate. The bill also sets up appeal procedures when the candidate is told his or her petition lacks enough valid signatures.

SB 690, which reduces the number of signatures for all presidential candidates (both those running in a presidential primary, and those attempting to get on the November ballot) from 10,000 to 5,000, passed the House Privileges and Elections Committee. This bill had also already passed the Senate.

Finally, the Senate amended HB 1346, a bill that originally only reduced the number of signatures for presidential primary candidates and which had already passed the House. The Senate amended HB 1346 to include general election presidential candidates as well. Then the Senate passed it, 27-12. At this point, SB 690 and HB 1346 are now identical, and it won’t make any difference which one is finally passed. Both the House Committee, and the full Senate, have now expressed themselves as favoring reducing the number of signatures for all presidential candidates, primary and general alike. It seems very likely that one or the other of these two identical bills will soon be on the Governor’s desk.

New York city elects its Mayor in November 2013. See this press release, which says that Kristin Davis will seek the Libertarian Party nomination for Mayor. She also sought the Libertarian gubernatorial nomination in 2010, but the party chose Warren Redlich instead. So, Davis then became the gubernatorial candidate of the Anti-Prohibition Party. At the November 2010 general election, Redlich polled 48,386 votes, and Davis received 20,429 votes.

In November 2006, the Libertarian Party had only polled 14,736 votes for Governor of New York.

California Assemblymember Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco) has introduced ACA 7, a proposed amendment to the California Constitution. It would let 17-year-olds vote in primaries, if they will have attained age 18 by the time of the general election.