For several years, Pennsylvania ballot access activists, operating as the Pennsylvania Ballot Access Committee, have been trying to persuade the legislature to pass the ballot access reform bill that has repeatedly been introduced. For the first time, State Senator Lloyd Smucker (R-Lancaster) has agreed to meet with the Coalition. Senator Smucker is chair of the State Government Committee, the Senate committee that handles election law bills. The meeting will be in the Senator’s district office in Lancaster on October 28 at 10 a.m. Attendance is by invitation, because only eight activists will be permitted to participate in the meeting.

The bill, SB 195 by Senator Mike Folmer and others, has three co-sponsors who are on that Committee. Also, three other Senators on that Committee have recommended that a hearing be held. The committee has eleven members, so a majority of the Committee desire the hearing. The bill would reduce the number of signatures needed by independent candidates to the same number needed for major party members to get on their party’s primary ballot. For minor parties, the bill would use registration data instead of petitions to determine which parties are on the ballot. Smaller qualified parties would nominate by convention.

On October 15, a new Poll was released for the Virginia gubernatorial race, showing these results: McAuliffe 46%, Cuccinelli 39%, Sarvis 11%, undecided 4%. See more details here. The poll was carried out by the Judy Ford Watson Center for Public Policy. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

On October 15, the Arkansas Libertarian Party plans to submit approximately 16,000 signatures to become a qualified party in Arkansas again. And on October 22, the Arkansas Green Party expects to submit approximately 15,000 signatures. The state requires 10,000 valid signatures.

This is the fifth election year in a row in which the Arkansas Green Party has completed this petition, and the second for the Libertarians. Arkansas irrationally removes parties from the ballot if they don’t poll 3% for the office at the top of the ticket, every two years. Generally, minor parties can’t poll as much as 3% for President. Both parties were removed after the November 2012 election. It would be more rational for Arkansas to change the 3% vote test to any statewide nominee. Repetitive petition drives are not only exhausting for the parties, but they are expensive and burdensome for election officials as well. On the average, the cost to election administrators to check petitions is $1 per signature.

The only parties, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, that have polled 3% for President in the last 90 years are the Progressive Party of 1924, the American Independent Party of 1968, and the Reform Party of 1996. UPDATE: see this news story.