On February 18, the California Secretary of State released new registration data, the first state tally since the tally of February 10, 2013.

The new tally shows fewer registered voters than the tally from February 2013, because during the interval counties have purged deadwood from the list. Among the parties that were qualified during 2013, the new percentages for each are: Democratic 43.58%, Republican 28.73%, American Independent 2.66%, Libertarian .64%, Green .62%, Peace & Freedom .43%, Americans Elect .0197%.

The February 2013 percentages for those parties were: Democratic 43.93%, Republican 28.94%, American Independent 2.64%, Green .63%, Libertarian .61%, Peace & Freedom .34%, Americans Elect .0189%.

The number of registered voters who are not members of any party is difficult to know, because some counties now put voters who leave the party question blank into the “other parties” category, which also includes people are registered into unqualified parties. In the new report, “no party preference” includes 20.94%, and “other” includes 2.39%. By contrast, in the February 2013 tally, “no party preference” was at 20.86% and “other” was 2.04%.

Among the unqualified parties, the Reform Party continues to be the largest by far, with 16,377 registrants, compared to 16,583 in February 2013. Constitution is now at 355, compared to 304 in February 2013. Justice is now at 291, compared to 286 in February 2013.

The new tally is the first tally at which Libertarians outnumber Greens, since the Green registration drive that put it on the ballot in 1991.

On February 21-22, state officials of the Alabama Republican Party will determine whether 18 particular Republican candidates should be removed from the party’s June 2014 primary. See this story. Many, if not most, of the challenges are based on allegations that the challenged candidates are not loyal to the Republican Party, or that they took money from groups that the Republican Party doesn’t like.

On February 8, the Pennsylvania elections office announced that it has re-designed the petition form for candidates seeking to get on a primary ballot. The new form no longer says that the circulator lives in the particular district or jurisdiction in which the candidate is running. Although both primary and general election petitions in Pennsylvania can only be circulated by residents of Pennsylvania, at least circulators can now live anywhere in Pennsylvania, whether they are circulating primary petitions or general election petitions.

This liberalization had already been made some years ago for general election petitions. It was odd that Pennsylvania had continued to enforce the in-district residency requirement for circulators for primary petitions, but not general election petitions.

The form was changed in response to a federal lawsuit filed on November 1, 2013, Villa v Aichele, eastern district, 13-6374. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed after the state agreed not to enforce the residency requirement.

As recently as 2010, the only Republican running for U.S. House in Pennsylvania’s First District had been kept off the primary ballot because some of her petitioners had not lived in the First District.