On June 23, a lower state court in Illinois removed both initiatives from the ballot. See this story. One initiative would impose legislative term limits; the other would set up a redistricting commission.

Everyone agrees that the term limits has enough valid signatures, but whether the redistricting initiative has enough valid signatures is still contested. But the court ruling related to whether initiatives on those two subjects are even possible under the Illinois Constitution, which does not permit statewide initiatives unless they relate to the legislature. The decision on the term limits initiative will be quickly appealed to the State Supreme Court. The redistricting initiative proponents concede their proposal won’t be on the 2014 ballot.

This is a fascinating and very detailed article on significant voting irregularities in the Mississippi GOP runoff. Included are statements by Democratic Party officials confirming a number of illegal actions by election officers and GOP officials.

UPDATE: see this story.

On June 26, the deadline, the New Mexico Green Party submitted a petition to restore its party status. New Mexico now has six ballot-qualified parties: Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Constitution, Green, and Independent American.

However, there are only a handful of minor party nominees for any office in New Mexico this year, because of the law that says even a qualified party must submit a petition signed by 1% of the last gubernatorial vote for each of its nominees, unless it is entitled to nominate by primary.

New Mexico is one of only three states that will definitely have no statewide minor party or independent candidates on the November 2014 ballot. The others are California and Alabama, and possibly Kentucky and New Hampshire (depending on whether Libertarian petitions for U.S. Senate in those two states succeed). The only state that has no statewide office elections this year is Washington. Thanks to Rick Lass for the information about the Green Party petition.