Ohio election laws require statewide minor party candidates in primaries to submit at least 500 signatures to be on their own party’s primary ballot. According to this story, the Ohio Libertarian primary petitions for Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Auditor did not have 500 valid signatures. Also the Green Party’s primary petitions for Governor and Lieutenant Governor also failed to contain at least 500 valid signatures.

The Libertarian primary petitions for Governor-Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General did have at least 500 valid signatures.

These parties could still potentially nominate candidates by write-in votes, but 500 write-ins would be needed. In 2012 the Ohio Libertarian and Green Parties tried very hard to nominate their U.S. Senate candidates by write-ins at the primaries, but did not succeed in getting the needed 500 write-in votes.

It’s also possible that the various excluded candidates can demonstrate that they really did have enough valid signatures. The primary is May 6.

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.