According to this news story, Hawaii elections officials have determined that the Americans Elect petition for party status has enough valid signatures. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
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See here for an extensive story about Puerto Rico’s Republican presidential primary. That primary will be held March 18, a Sunday. The story does not say who is on that ballot, but six names will appear: Newt Gingrich, Fred Karger, Ron Paul, Buddy Roemer, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Roemer won the ballot position drawing and will be listed first.
A Georgia bill to modestly improve ballot access has been killed, because Rep. Mark Hamilton (R-Cumming), chair of the House Governmental Affairs Committee, is angry that minor party and independent candidates are saying the bill’s improvements aren’t good enough. See this story.
Georgia now requires a petition of 5% of the number of registered voters for district and county office. The Secretary of State’s Advisory Commission early this year recommended lowering that to 5% of the last presidential vote, and put that idea into HB 949. That represented a 25% cut in the required signatures. But now the other parts of HB 949 have been moved into HB 899, and HB 949 will be left to die. According to the story, Representative Hamilton didn’t like people advocating instead for HB 494, which removes all mandatory petitions and lets the filing fee requirement be the only barrier to November ballot access for independents and minor party candidates.
The Mitt Romney campaign has produced a 50-second ad, showing committed Democrats and committed supporters of President Obama saying on camera that they are organizing Democrats to vote in open primary states for Rick Santorum. See it via this link.
On February 29, the Texas Republican Party and Texas Democratic Party submitted a joint proposal to the 3-judge U.S. District Court that is hearing the redistricting case. The two parties advocate these policies for minor party and independent candidate ballot access for 2012:
1. Petitions for newly-qualifying parties, and for independent candidates for President, and independent candidates for all other office, will be due June 29.
2. No primary screen-out will exist in 2012 for these petitions.
These ideas represent a huge improvement for ballot access, compared to the statutory law. Under the statutes, which will not be in effect in 2012, the independent presidential candidate petition deadline is May 14. Assuming the court adopts the proposed order, for the first time since 1984, every state will have some procedure for a non-Democratic, non-Republican presidential candidate to get on the ballot by a date later than June 3. The earliest deadline for president will be Colorado, which does not require a petition for independent presidential candidates, but which requires a $500 filing fee no later than June 4, 2012. The latest deadline, which is shared by half a dozen states, is September 7, 2012.
2012 will also be the first presidential election since 1908 in which no state has a primary screen-out for all methods to the general election ballot.
Thanks to Jim Riley for alerting me to the proposed order, and to Texas Redistricting Blog for a link to the order.