The Pennsylvania Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties have all decided to appeal the March 7 decision of a U.S. District Court that they don’t have standing to sue over the Pennsylvania challenge system, which leaves any statewide independent candidate, or any statewide petitioning party, in jeopardy of over $100,000 if they submit a petition that has fewer valid signatures than are required.

In other Pennsylvania news, two activists from the Constitution Party will soon visit Harrisburg this week to examine the official election returns sent in by each county. They will examine the returns so that the number of write-ins for various presidential candidates who weren’t on the ballot can be known to history. Most of the counties count the write-ins and record them, but the state won’t tally them up this year, even though it did so for a few presidential write-in candidates in 2008.

On March 21, the Working Families Party of South Carolina held a convention and nominated Elizabeth Colbert Busch (sister of Stephen Colbert) for the special U.S. House election, First District, that will be held May 7. Busch is also the Democratic Party nominee, but voters can choose which label to use if they vote for her. The Green Party nominee is Eugene Platt. Republicans haven’t yet chosen their nominee, but it will either be Mark Sanford or Curtis Bostic.

On March 5, the Oklahoma Senate defeated SB 275 by a vote of 23 “yes” to 22 “no”. The Senate has 48 members, and bills need 25 votes to pass. The bill would have moved the deadline for candidates to file for the (non-presidential) June primary, from the 2nd Wednesday in April, to the 2nd Monday in January. The bill would have made the same deadline change for non-presidential independent candidates.

Because the deadline for petitions for newly-qualifying parties is March 1, the bill said that candidates of a newly-qualifying party would be exempt from the January deadline, and would have filed in April.