On April 30, supporters of an Illinois legislative term limits initiative delivered 591,092 signatures to the office of the State Board of Elections. See this story. Supporters collected almost twice as many signatures as the legal requirement.

An earlier initiative for legislative term limits was removed from the ballot by the Illinois Supreme Court, because the State Constitution limits the subject matter of initiatives to only certain narrow subjects. The new initiative takes that decision into account, and includes other provisions that are clearly within the constitutional mandate, such as changing the constitution’s rules on how many votes are needed in the legislature to overcome a gubernatorial veto. Thanks to Paul Jacob for the link.

On April 30, the Louisiana Senate Committee on Senate & Governmental Affairs passed HB 193, which lets a party use the word “Independent” in its name. The bill has already passed the House.

New Mexico Representative Sandra Jeff will be a write-in candidate for re-election in November 2014. See this story. She failed to get on the Democratic primary ballot, because she didn’t have enough valid signatures. She can’t be a write-in in the Democratic primary because New Mexico does not permit write-in votes in primaries. She can’t be an independent candidate in November because New Mexico does not allow independent candidates who have recently been registered members of qualified parties.

In 1997, the New Mexico legislature passed a bill abolishing write-in space on general election ballots, but then-Governor Gary Johnson vetoed it, so New Mexico still allows write-ins in the general election.