On August 12, the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office determined that the Libertarian Party U.S. Senate petition in Kentucky has enough valid signatures. This is the first time any unqualified party has completed a U.S. Senate petition in Kentucky since 1978, when the American Party petitioned for U.S. Senate.

The Reform Party had a U.S. Senate nominee in 1998, another midterm year, but the Reform Party didn’t need to complete a petition for that race, because it had polled over 2% of the vote for President in 1996, so was automatically on the ballot for all partisan office in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

On August 15, the Meigs County, Ohio, Board of Elections certified Mick Davenport as an independent candidate for County Commissioner. See this story. Davenport was chair of the county Democratic Party until last year, and served as a Democratic member of the Commission for the period 1998-2010.

On August 15, the Illinois Hearing Officer who conducted the review of the challenge to the Libertarian Party statewide slate recommended that the slate be placed on the ballot. However, the final decision will be made by the State Board of Elections.

The only basis the challengers had for arguing that the slate should not be on the ballot was that the challengers argued that certain petitioners’ entire work product should be excluded. Generally, the basis for eliminating the entire work product of particular petitioners related to questions about where the petitioner lives. Thanks to Bill Redpath for this news.